LYNNWOOD, Wash., March 12, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Whole Foods Market is thrilled to announce its arrival in the Lynnwood community with its newest Puget Sound store, set to open at 9 a.m. on Thursday, March 15 with festivities and a bread breaking ceremony starting at 8 a.m. Lynnwood Mayor Don Gough and members of the Snohomish County Economic Alliance will join Whole Foods Market store leadership to cut the traditional eight-foot long sourdough bread and welcome shoppers into the store.

Located at 2800 196th Street SW, in the former Circuit City building near Alderwood Mall, the new store will feature a wide range of local products from farms like Sherman's Pioneer Farm and Willie Green's Organic Farm and producers such as CB's Nuts and Mirracole Morsels.

"We designed our first Snohomish County store to cater specifically to the families and residents of this community, from the strong focus on back-to-basics cooking for all budgets to the first dedicated Kid's Club area in the region," said Whole Foods Market Regional President Joe Rogoff. "We hope this store will become a community gathering place, and a destination for high quality, affordable food with a focus on local, healthy, organic and fresh."

The first 100 visitors to the store on Thursday, March 15 will receive a free baguette to symbolize the bread breaking as well as a reusable shopping bag. Grand opening festivities will also include music from the Lynnwood High School band, free coffee and breakfast, and samples all day from over 15 vendors including local companies Mighty-O Donuts, Whidbey Island Ice Cream and Lagana Pasta.

On Saturday, March 17, Whole Foods Market will host a community celebration from 10 a.m.-2 p.m. The "Whole Family Celebration" will feature live music by local trio The Wiretappers, vendor demonstrations, hands-on kids' activities and participation from local community organizations including PAWS, the Imagine Children's Museum and the University of Washington's Dubs' Club.

The store emphasizes a commitment to green practices and environmentally friendly construction, from the LED lighting to the locally sourced, reclaimed Douglas Fir wood visible throughout. The Lynnwood store is the first Whole Foods Market in the Pacific Northwest to use Glycol as a refrigerant, reducing the amount of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) produced by the store.

From March 19 to April 15, the store will host a food drive benefiting the Lynnwood Food Bank. Customers can donate non-perishable items in the dropbox near customer service, with all donations going directly to the food bank.

Some of the highlights that Snohomish County Whole Foods Market shoppers can look forward to enjoying include:

Store Information

Hours: Open daily from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m., coffee bar opens at 7 a.m. daily.

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Whole Foods Market® to Open in Lynnwood on March 15

Olivier de Schutter recommends cracking down on junk food advertising, regulating foods high in fats and sugar, and tax unhealthy products.

Image: Andrei Zarubaika/Shutterstock

Olivier de Schutter, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, has issued five recommendations for fixing diets and food systems:

De Schutter explains:

One in seven people globally are undernourished, and many more suffer from the 'hidden hunger' of micronutrient deficiency, while 1.3 billion are overweight or obese.

Faced with this public health crisis, we continue to prescribe medical remedies: nutrition pills and early-life nutrition strategies for those lacking in calories; slimming pills, lifestyle advice and calorie counting for the overweight.

But we must tackle the systemic problems that generate poor nutrition in all its forms.

Governments, he said:

have often been indifferent to what kind of calories are on offer, at what price, to whom they are accessible, and how they are marketed.... We have deferred to food companies the responsibility for ensuring that a good nutritional balance emerges.

...heavy processing thrives in our global food system, and is a win-win for multinational agri-food companies ... but for the people, it is a lose-lose.... In better-off countries, the poorest population groups are most affected because foods high in fats, sugar, and salt are often cheaper than healthy diets as a result of misguided subsidies whose health impacts have been wholly ignored.

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The U.N. Special Rapporteur Offers 5 Ways to Fix Unhealthy Diets

Just in time to spoil the promise of warm-weather picnics, Harvard scientists have found that daily consumption of red meat particularly the kind you might like to grill may significantly increase your risk of premature death.

While this much has long been suspected, perhaps even by you, the Harvard-led study is the first nuanced analysis to calculate the risk that a serving of red meat can have on your longevity compared with other protein sources.

The study measures, for example, how much one could expect to lower their risk of early death by replacing pork and beef with poultry, fish, nuts or beans can lower the risk of early death; they found chicken was at least as healthy an alternative to red meat as beans and whole grains.

"This paper does not give a green light to a low-fat, high-carb diet," senior author Frank Hu of Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) told LiveScience. "Instead, it underscores the importance of types or quality of protein." [7 Foods Your Heart Will Hate]

The study was published today (March 12) online in the journal Archives of Internal Medicine.

120,000 people can't be wrong

The researchers, led by An Pan at HSPH, tapped into two longitudinal health studies the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study, and the Nurses' Health Study which capture health and dietary information from approximately 120,000 adults who were free of cardiovascular disease and cancer at the onset of the study and followed for up to 28 years.

For these subjects, 20 percent of whom died during the study, one daily serving of unprocessed red meat such as steak or pork chops was associated with a 13 percent increased risk of dying during the study. One daily serving of processed red meat, such as a hot dog or bacon, was associated with a 20 percent increased risk.

Conversely, replacing one serving of red meat with one serving of a healthy protein source was associated with a lower mortality risk: 19 percent lower when the meat was replaced with nuts; 14 percent for poultry; 14 percent for whole grains; 10 percent for legumes; 10 percent for low-fat dairy products; and 7 percent for fish. [Top 10 Leading Causes of Death]

"This study provides clear evidence that regular consumption of red meat, especially processed meat, contributes substantially to premature death," said Hu.

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Red Meat a Ticket to Early Grave, Harvard Says

NINE-YEAR-OLD James McMullen is enjoying the start of another school year, with a strict new diet helping to combat epileptic seizures.

Mum Lorrie said James had a bad few months last year when he started having a different type of seizure they hadnt seen before.

>> Do you have any tips for controlling epilepsy? Tell us below.

At his worst, James was having up to three seizures a day and it culminated in a week-long stay at the Austin Hospital in September as doctors tried to find out what was causing them.

Around the same time, he was diagnosed with a digestive disorder, fructose malabsorption, and going on a strict diet had helped limit seizures, Mrs McMullen said.

She said he had only had about five seizures since then.

James, who is in Grade 4 at Scoresbys St Judes Primary, has complex generalised epilepsy, resulting in a range of different seizures, from a brief stiffening of his muscles to losing all muscle strength and dropping to the ground.

The epilepsy was thought to have been brought on by bleeding on the brain, which he suffered when he was born 12 weeks premature.

He was given only a 3 per cent chance of survival at the time.

He started having seizures at age three and ended up unconscious in hospital twice before he was diagnosed at age four.

Originally posted here:
Diet combats Scoresby student's epilepsy

March 12, 2012 08:04:14 PM

PANAMA CITY The Mediterranean diet is a heart-healthy diet that incorporates olive oil and even a glass of red wine and can reduce the risk of heart disease, a local dietitian said Monday.

A survey of more than 1.5 million healthy adults showed those utilizing the Mediterranean diet had a reduced risk of cardiovascular mortality, a reduced incident of cancer and cancer mortality, and reduced incidences of Parkinsons and Alzheimers diseases, according to the Mayo Clinic.

The Mediterranean diet has been shown to reduce the incidents of many chronic diseases and it can improve health, said Cindy Shipman, a registered dietitian at Bay Medical Center. The thing that is important to remember is that its not just a diet; its a lifestyle. It promotes meals that are satisfying and healthy.

The key concepts is it is a plant-based diet that uses fish, low fat, dairy and produce with a small amount of meat and sweets.

It is a diet of super foods that make you feel good, and with less meat you can cut shopping costs, Shipman said. It also stresses fruits that are in season.

The Mediterranean diet also emphasizes daily exercise, whole grains, replacing butter with healthy fats such as olive and canola oil, and using herbs and spices instead of salt to flavor foods. The Mediterranean diet was ranked as a top three diet by U.S. News and World Report.

Its not a fad diet; its been around for 200 years, Shipman said. Avoid fad diets. Instead of improving health, it can give people health problems.

The Mediterranean diet encourages eating fish and poultry at least twice a week and eating red meat no more than a few times a month. Another healthy diet Shipman recommends is the DASH diet, which was developed to fight high blood pressure.

The DASH diet is not as well-known, but it can help prevent and control diabetes and is heart-healthy. The diet DASH stands for Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension aims at reducing the amount of sodium consumed. The basic diet includes lots of whole grains, fruits, vegetables and low-fat dairy products, and is low in saturated fat and cholesterol.

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Dietitian promotes heart-healthy diet

ROBBEN ISLAND, South Africa - It is hard to imagine a more idyllic setting in which the sadistic horrors of South Africa's apartheid played out than Robben Island.

Just a few kilometres across the frigid Atlantic from the modern bustle of Cape Town and the panoramic sweep of Table Mountain and Lion's Head, it is a place still haunted by the ghosts of its recent past.

Once, its very name evoked desolation and dread a place where those who dared take on the power of the white minority state were banished.

Among the many political victims who laboured in its quarry hacking at white rock under the eye-damaging sun was Nelson Mandela. This was his home for 18 of his 27 years behind bars. His cell, with its simple bed, is now open to visitors who are led around by another former prisoner.

Today, Robben Island its name comes from the Dutch for Seal Island is a place to contemplate both the evil of state-sanctioned oppression and the indomitable spirit of those the jack-boots could not crush despite the regime's best efforts.

Hundreds of tourists now traipse quietly through the notorious cellblocks in which absolute power was wielded with absolute indifference.

Even here, the far-reaching pettiness of segregation was evident. No shoes or underwear and a subsistence diet for black prisoners made to wear short pants. "Coloured" inmates fared slightly better with their diets and long pants, the guide explains. White inmates were kept elsewhere.

One letter strictly censored, sometimes forged or altered by guards allowed every month or three. Tales of torture, both mental and physical.

The one-time leper colony turned gulag so achingly close to the mainland, yet so impossibly far away now functions as a museum and world heritage site against a backdrop that takes the breath away.

The small boats that ferried prisoners and later visitors to and from the island have been replaced by a large modern ferry that carries a few hundred people at a time from the glittering, modern waterfront development at the foot of Cape Town on the 30-minute ocean ride.

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Robben Island: Triumph of spirit over tyranny against breath-taking backdrop

UPON discovering she had coeliac disease, Ellyn Palfreyman immediately went to the pantry only discover she could safely eat two items - peanut butter and rice.

Miss Palfreyman's family watched as she dropped to a staggering 50kg due to her immune system rejecting anything with gluten.

"I went to hospital with suspected appendicitis because I had really bad stomach pains,'' she said.

"The surgeon said 'this girl doesn't have appendicitis so find out what's wrong with her'.''

A trip to back to the family GP and a detailed history ended with a test for coeliac disease.

"In the end it made total sense because when I was younger, like seven or eight, I had gone through lots of bouts of sickness where I couldn't eat or would feel sick all the time.

"My parent's would say 'you will be right in the morning'' and my stomach would always feel better in the morning, which made sense because I hadn't eaten for 12 hours''.

Miss Palfreyman was diagnosed when she was 18.

Now 22 and a UTAS Rural Clinical School medical student, Miss Palfreyman said she didn't realise how unhealthy she felt until starting the gluten-free diet.

"I thought 'so this what it feels like to feel good'.

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Diagnosis gives Ellyn a new lease on life

8 Steps to Naturally Reduce Your Risk of Colon Cancer

March is Colon Cancer Awareness Month. According to the Colon Cancer Alliance and the American Cancer Society, colon cancer, also known as colorectal cancer, is the third most commonly diagnosed cancer and the second leading cause of cancer death in men and women combined in the U.S.

Colon cancer is considered a preventable cancer. Why? Primarily because by changing our diet we can reduce risk dramatically. And if we get regular screenings (colonoscopies), we may be diagnosed only with precancerous or early stage cancer cells that are easily removed and treated.

8 Proven Steps You Can Take to Naturally Reduce Your Risk of Colorectal Cancer

Colorectal cancer is a "food-related" cancer. (1) Everything you eat passes over the lining of your digestive tract. The lining of the large intestine and the rectum at the lower end of the digestive tube contains waste, digestive fluids, bile acids and fiber. That lining is bathed by chemicals in food, your own hormones and secretions, and healthy and unhealthy bacteria. The contents of your intestines have a direct impact on the health of the cells lining the bowel. Colorectal cancer is directly impacted by your diet.

1. Eat Less Red Meat

Studies show eating red meat "frequently" increases the incidence of colon cancer. Eating red meat daily and especially more than one serving per day increased risk. Plant-based diets showed lowest risk (1). Increased risk is associated with increased inflammation associated with chemicals released by digestion of red meat. These chemicals increase damage to and inhibit the repair of DNA (genetic material) in the cells lining your intestines (2). Damage to DNA is a primary cause of all cancers.

2. Eat More Garlic

According to the National Cancer Institute fact sheet on garlic and cancer prevention:

Protective effects from garlic may arise from its antibacterial properties or from its ability to block the formation of cancer-causing substances, halt the activation of cancer-causing substances, enhance DNA repair, reduce cell proliferation, or induce cell death ...

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Dr. Nalini Chilkov: The Anti Colon Cancer Diet