CNN Health has a great article this week about spring cleaning your diet.  With the warmer spring weather finally upon us what better time than to get rid of the heavier winter foods that we enjoyed so much while we were cooped up inside, and replace them with springtime fruits and veggies!  The article highlights 10 of them and lets you know the best time to purchase from your local farmers market.http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/04/14/spring.clean.diet/index.html

I’m also including the Arlington Farmers Market Schedule for this season!

http://www.arlingtonva.us/portals/topics/FarmersMarkets.aspx

One of my favor sites is RealAge.com.  They have done a wonderful job combining reasonable information that, simply put, will increase your longevity and improve your quality of life.  I find the information , user friendly, and easy to incorporate into my daily lifestyle.

Here is a recent tip from RealAge.com.

Have you heard of Aflatoxin?  Aflatoxin is a substance produced by certain molds that show up on foods like peanuts and corn.  The toxin has been known to cause damage to the liver, and is so problematic that the FDA has set limits on how much of these food source, ie: corn and peanuts, can safely be in our diet.

But here is the good news.  Researchers have found that Chlorophyll and chlorophyllin, found richly in spinach, may help to reduce the absorption of aflatoxin into the liver. Researchers believe that chlorophyll and chlorophyllin, bond to aflatoxin to form a beneficial substance that is not as easily absorbed by the intestines and therefore less processed in the liver.

Other foods with similar benefits include:

Broccoli, Parsley, Green Beens, Kale, Arugala and Leeks.

Conventional Fruit Labels

• Four Digits starting with 4

Organic Fruit Labels

• Five Digits starting with the the digit 9

Genetically Modified Fruits

• Start with the digit 8

So the next time you go shopping, remember these critical numbers and know how to avoid purchasing inorganic and Genetically Modified Fruits.

Shop Safe

This is good to know because stores aren’t obligated to tell you if a fruit has been genetically modified.

Just remember…

1. If you come across an apple in the store and it’s label is 4922, it’s a conventional apple grown with herbicides and harmful fertilizers.
2. If it has a sticker 99222, it’s organic and safe to eat.
3. BUT IF IT SAYS 89222, THEN DON’T BUY IT!!! IT HAS BEEN GENETICALLY MODIFIED AND MAY NOT BE SAFE.

“I learned one simple truth: Hunger is not caused by a scarcity of food but a scarcity of democracy. But that realization was only the beginning, for then I had to ask: What does a democracy look like that enables citizens to have a real voice in securing life’s essentials? Does it exist anywhere? Is it possible or a pipe dream? With hunger on the rise here in the United States-one in 10 of us is now turning to food stamps-these questions take on new urgency.”

Frances Moore Lappe
Author of Diet for a Small Planet
co-founder of Food First and the Small Planet Institute

Belo Horizonte is the fourth largest city in Brazil with a population over 2.5 million people, and at one time, had 11 percent of its population in absolute poverty and 20 percent of its children going hungry. But in 1993, newly elected officials declared that food is a right of citizenship. “If you are too poor to buy food in the market-you are no less a citizen. I am still accountable to you.”

So the new mayor did what good politicians should do-got committed to fixing a problem. They assembled a 20 member council of city leaders and then took the bold step of developing a “food-as-right policy” to solve the city’s problems of hunger and malnutrition. Essentially, the people of Belo figured out how to better connect local family farmers with consumers, wealthy and poor alike. Here is what they did:

• Offer local family farmers dozens of prime spots in public urban places. By doing so, they essentially redistributed retailer markups on produce, which often ran over 100 percent, to consumers and the farmers.
• The city made good food available by offering entrepreneurs the opportunity to bid on the right to use well-trafficked plots of city land for these “ABC Markets”.
• The city determines a set price, about two-thirds of the market price, on 20 local grown items. The rest can be sold at market price.
• An attached obligation of the ABC sellers with the best spots is to drive produce-laden trucks to the poor neighborhoods outside of the city center, every weekend, so everyone can get fresh produce.
• The city council then designed 3 large, open air “People’s Restaurants” that serve 12,000 people. Locally grown food for the equivalent of 50 cents per meal.
• Belo’s food security initiatives also provides school lunches, once spent on processed food, whole food grown locally; includes extensive school and community gardens and nutrition classes.

SHOW ME THE MONEY!!!

In less than a decade, these are the results of the Belo Initiative:

• Reduced Infant death rate by more than half.
• The initiative benefits more than 40 percent of the city’s 2.5 million citizens.
• The total cost of this effort was $10 Million annually, or less than 2% of the city budget. That is roughly 1 penny a day per Belo Resident?

The most striking lesson of the Belo Initiative is what the City Council reported, “It is easy to end hunger if we are willing to break free of limiting frames and to see with new eyes.”

Just interesting facts that make great “food for thought” …

• Fact: 66% of adult Americans are overweight or obese
• Fact: In the US, 4 companies pack 85% of beef, 66% of pork and crush 80% of soybeans
• Fact: Agri-Corporations produce 98%of poultry in US
• Fact: In 2006, farms larger than 2000 acres made up 4% of all farms receiving government aid, but they got 27% of the money
• Fact: In 2000, 25% of corn and 54% of soybeans grown in US were genetically modified. In 2008, the numbers were 80% and 92%
• Fact: In 1967, US per capita consumption of high fructose corn syrup was .03 pounds per year. In 2006, it was 58.2
• Fact: Iceberg lettuce, frozen and fried potatoes, potato chips, and canned tomatoes make up almost 1/2 of US vegetable consumption

What do you think? Pretty eye-opening, no?
Your comments are welcome…