More Fairfax sub-editors to be laid off

Nearly a fifth of sub-editors at Fairfax are about to be made redundant with the rest to be centralised, following the loss of 70 subs at APN last year and the loss of a whole swag of subs when The Evening Post and The Dominion papers merged. APN publishes The New Zealand Herald and Fairfax owns The Dominion Post and The Press.

Have a look at the NZPA story on this, and you'll spot at least three subbing errors. You'd think they'd sub a story on subbing correctly, wouldn't you?

British kids can use expletives in school exams

You have to wonder WTF is going on in exams these days. British high school students are being awarded marks for writing obscene phrases on their English tests because it shows at least some ability to convey a message.

A chief examiner responsible for training other markers said the phrase "f... off" deserved some marks. The British government's examinations regulator refused to condemn the approach.

We think it's important that candidates are able to use appropriate language in a variety of situations

Yes, very appropriate. What next! Expletives in French language classes - and in text message language, too, I suppose.

GI News—July 2008

• Are goji berries really a superfood?
  
• Inflammation, blood glucose and heart health. What you need to know.
  
• Do you have the sweet tooth gene?
  
• Tight glucose control and heart disease. Some questions answered.
  
• The Low GI Handbook – all the latest research in one book.
• Does milk make mucus?
  

This month we welcome Catherine Saxelby to the GI News team to write our Food of the Month column. From fast food to vitamins, Catherine has researched, written and talked about virtually every aspect of healthy eating. She is one of Australia’s best known nutritionists and food commentators. Her book, Nutrition for Life, has clocked up sales of over 400 000, making it one of the most enduring and popular nutrition books in the marketplace . As ever in GI News there are our usual features including Kate Hemphill's delicious recipes, the ever-popular success stories, feedback where we answer your curly questions and our regular columns with Dr David and Prof. Trim.

Good eating, good health and good reading.

GI News Editor: Philippa Sandall
Web Design and Management: Scott Dickinson, PhD

Food for Thought

Quench inflammation and protect your heart
The statistics for heart disease are pretty much the same everywhere in the developed world. It’s the biggest killer. Often the cause is atherosclerosis or ‘hardening of the arteries’ which develops slowly and quietly for years until bingo, it suddenly produces the stabbing pain of angina or a heart attack. Today, it’s affecting younger and younger people and the beginnings of blood vessel damage are even being seen in children!



Most people are aware of the key diet and lifestyle messages to reduce the likelihood of becoming a heart disease statistic: stopping smoking, getting more exercise and eating a healthy diet – especially cutting back on saturated fats and choosing the good fats. Fewer appreciate that high blood glucose levels are a red flag risk factor for heart disease, too.

A recent review in Current Atherosclerosis Reports that looked at the latest studies of links between blood glucose and heart disease risk found that high blood glucose levels after eating plays a greater role than is generally acknowledged. Dr Scott Dickinson, one of the authors, told GI News that: ‘The present evidence suggests that even non-diabetic levels of high blood glucose levels after meals likely plays a key role in developing atherosclerosis, especially in people with a higher BMI, insulin resistance or impaired glucose tolerance.’

What’s the link between blood glucose and atherosclerosis? Inflammation. For some time now, heart disease researchers have suspected that the blockages in coronary arteries that can lead to a heart attack, aren’t just caused by the build up of cholesterol and other fats, but an inflammatory process in the arteries, similar to what happens when you get a bacterial infection, also plays a part. It’s thought that high blood glucose after meals contributes to chronic low inflammation by increasing oxidative stress (see below).

There’s already considerable evidence that hyperglycemia drives the development of complications of the blood vessels in people with diabetes. But a new study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition suggests that even in healthy, young people, high glucose levels after eating are associated with the kind of oxidative stress that may increase risk of heart disease.

Lead researcher Dr Scott Dickinson explained that they wanted to compare the effects of eating high and low GI carbs on an inflammatory marker called NF-kB that’s part of the body’s defence system against oxidative stress. To do this they gave 10 healthy, lean volunteers ‘meals’ of white bread (GI 70), cooked pasta (GI 35), or a glucose drink (GI 100). They found that the quickly digested white bread had the same capacity to acutely activate NF-kB as the glucose. By contrast, the slowly digested pasta had an almost negligible effect on NF-kB activation. In addition, the changes in NF-kB were on par with changes in blood glucose concentrations which suggests that slower rates of digestion and absorption reduce oxidative stress.

They conclude: ‘our findings are novel and have important implications. High GI carbohydrates including potatoes, wholegrain breads, and many varieties of breads and breakfast cereals dominate modern diets. Although antioxidants and phytonutrients in whole grains may quench free radicals and help to protect cells from oxidative damage, it may be prudent to also reduce the source of oxidative stress (i.e., reduce postprandial hyperglycemia). Longer term studies comparing conventional and low GI diets on the development of both type 2 diabetes and CVD in high-risk groups are warranted.’

What’s oxidative stress?
Your body constantly reacts with oxygen as you breathe and your cells produce energy. As a consequence, highly reactive molecules are produced known as free radicals. Free radicals interact with other molecules within cells and can cause oxidative damage to proteins, membranes and genes. It’s the imbalance between the production of reactive oxygen and a biological system's ability to readily detoxify the reactive intermediates or easily repair the resulting damage that causes oxidative stress.)

News Briefs

GI News special report
Tight glucose control and heart disease
Earlier this year, we reported that part of a major US clinical trial (ACCORD) had been halted when researchers checking interim results found that more people receiving intensive glucose lowering therapy died (257 deaths) compared with those getting the standard treatment (203 deaths). Half of the deaths in the intensive-control group were from heart disease – what the treatment was intended to prevent.



What happened next? The first papers on the ACCORD trial and an Australian study (ADVANCE) have now been published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

ACCORD and ADVANCE were both big trials (over 10,000 and 11,000 participants respectively) and long term (3.5–5 years). The researchers wanted to see whether intensive blood glucose control (with drugs not diet and lifestyle) would dramatically reduce the number of heart attacks and stroke in high risk people with long established type 2 diabetes. The studies were designed to bring the participants’ average A1c down to 6% or even less (the average A1c level in people without diabetes falls between 3.5 and 5.5%).



Although the ADVANCE study shows clear benefits of intensive blood glucose control in reducing kidney disease risk, the ‘most compelling message from both studies is that near normal glycemic control for a median of 3.5 to 5 years does not reduce cardiovascular events within that timeframe’ report Drs Dluhy and McMahon writing in an editorial in the same issue of the journal.

A couple of big differences in the two studies stand out. Participants in ACCORD had a very rapid rate of decline in their blood glucose levels (1.4% within 4 months in their A1c). In ADVANCE, the decline was a gradual one – 0.5% at 6 months and 0.6% at 12 months.



There were also differences in weight gain. ACCORD volunteers gained an average of 3.5 kg and more than 27% of them piled on over 10 kg. Average weight gain in the ADVANCE trial compared with the standard therapy group was much less – 0.7 kg. ‘The weight gain may not be a trivial point, since achieving glycemic control with such an aggressive drug strategy is clearly not equivalent to achieving such control through lifestyle changes (i.e. nutritional therapy and increased physical activity)’ writes Dr William Cefalu in an accompanying editorial.

So, what’s the take-home message for health professionals and people with type 2 diabetes?

Drs Dluhy and McMahon conclude: ‘The most appropriate target for glycated hemoglobin (A1c) should remain 7%, though lower individualized targets may be appropriate when the focus is primary prevention of macrovascular (heart) disease … Clinicians caring for patients with diabetes should continue to focus on smoking cessation, dietary and exercise counseling, blood-pressure control, and providing aspirin and a statin to a greater extent than achieved even in the ADVANCE and ACCORD studies. For now, rather than changing our current glycemic target, we may best serve our patients with type 2 diabetes by implementing programs to help more of them reach the currently recommended goals.’

In the last decade, research has yielded overwhelming evidence that lifestyle changes such as a healthy eating plan and increasing exercise make a real difference in the risk of developing type 2 diabetes and in the quality of health of those who already have it. In addition, mounting evidence shows that reducing your post-meal glucose rises is at least as important as hitting your target A1c when it comes to avoiding complications of type 2 diabetes including heart attacks. That’s why the International Diabetes Federation now urges people with type 2 diabetes to focus on healthy eating, physical activity and weight control to manage their diabetes and to keep their 2-hour post-meal blood glucose levels under 7.8 mmol/L (140 mg/dL).



Perspective – H.M. Krumholz and T.H. Lee: Redefining Quality – Implications of Recent Clinical Trials

Preventing diabetes – how long do lifestyle interventions last?
Several studies around the world have shown that three out of five people with pre-diabetes (impaired glucose tolerance) can prevent or at least delay getting type 2 diabetes by making lifestyle changes such as increasing their activity level, eating a healthier diet and achieving a modest weight loss (5–10 kg). Major clinical trials in USA, China, India, Finland and Japan have shown that ‘lifestyle interventions’ with group or individual counseling are very effective in helping people change their diet and get more exercise. The question is, how long do the ‘intervention’ benefits last when the professional support ends and you are on your own? A recent report in the Lancet suggests that a period of active lifestyle intervention can produce a significant reduction in the incidence of diabetes over the long term.

In 1986, 577 adults with impaired glucose tolerance from 33 clinics in China were randomly assigned to either a control group or to one of three lifestyle intervention groups (diet, exercise, or diet plus exercise). The study participants who followed a healthy diet (drinking less alcohol, eating more vegetables and losing weight if they were overweight or obese) and exercise (increasing leisure time physical activity) regime significantly delayed the development of diabetes for the six years of the ‘active intervention’ period compared with those in the control group. What about the long term? When researchers followed up 568 of the original 577 study participants in 2006 they found that:

• 435 people had developed type 2 diabetes – including 93% of the control group and 80% of the combined intervention groups.
• The onset of diabetes was significantly delayed among those who had been in the intervention groups, they had spent an average of 3.6 fewer years with diabetes than those in the control group.
• Fewer people from the intervention groups who had diabetes were on insulin.

‘There were 33.2 million people with impaired glucose tolerance in China in 2003,’ write the researchers, ‘and this is expected to increase to 54.3 million by 2025. Small group and lifestyle counseling in high-risk individuals at community facilities is likely to be effective if aimed more broadly at the Chinese population … at a more global level, widespread adoption of such interventions offers the prospect that projected increases in type 2 diabetes could be attenuated.’

GI Group: For tips on turning back the clock, check out:
Australia/New Zealand: The Diabetes & Pre-Diabetes Handbook
USA/Canada: New Glucose Revolution for Diabetes



The ‘sweet tooth’ gene
A new study by University of Toronto researchers published in Physiological Genomics reports that people with a specific genetic variation in the GLUT2 (glucose transporter type 2) gene which controls glucose entry into the cells consistently consume more sugary foods. ‘Certainly environmental factors can influence the foods that we like and dislike,’ says lead researcher Ahmed El-Sohemy. ‘But what this line of research demonstrates is that there is also a biological or a genetic basis for some of our likes and dislikes.’ El-Sohemy and his colleagues studied two large groups of volunteers, who completed detailed records of their daily diet. Analyzing blood samples, they found that people with a different form of GLUT2 consumed ‘between 20 and 30 grams of sugar extra ... every day’ he says. ‘It was about the equivalent amount of sugar that you would find in a regular sweetened can of soda.’



The GLUT2 gene is known to work in the pancreas. Other researchers have studied it in the brains of mice and ‘it turns out this gene is also turned on in regions of the brain that control appetite,’ says El-Sohemy. ‘Taken together, our findings show that a genetic variation in GLUT2 is associated with habitual consumption of sugars, suggesting an underlying glucose-sensing mechanism that regulates food intake.’

GI Group: For more detailed findings, check out the University of Toronto press release.

What's new?
The Low GI Handbook
by Prof. Jennie Brand-Miller, Kaye Foster-Powell and Prof. Stephen Colagiuri (Hachette Australia 2008)

This definitive guide to the long-term health benefits of low GI eating is grounded in some 30 years of research. Nearly two years in the making, this fully revised, updated and expanded edition of The New Glucose Revolution clearly summarises the relationship between carb quality and blood glucose levels and why opting for low GI carbs can make a real difference to your health, now and later in life.

The authors explain how a low GI diet aids in weight control and helps to manage type 1 diabetes, type 2 diabetes, pre-diabetes, gestational diabetes, hypoglycaemia, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS), heart disease and the metabolic syndrome. They also discuss how the GI applies to healthy eating for children, sports performance and exercise and they bring the reader up to date with the latest findings about carbs, blood glucose and brain function, dementia, acne, eyesight, cancer, sleep and gum disease.

The authors set out ten easy steps to following a healthy low GI diet and provide 50 simple and delicious recipes. The book includes the GI tables (with more than 900 foods) and comprehensive references to the scientific research that underpins the book.



www.greatideas.net.au
Great Ideas in Nutrition is the specialist online bookshop founded by Amanda Clark, an Advanced Accredited Practising Dietitian with 20 years experience and a busy private practice. One of the frustrations Amanda found when she became a dietitian was that when she visited bookshops, they knew what the best sellers were, but they rarely, if ever, had staff with any idea about the quality of advice given in the books they carried in their health and diet sections. She was determined to provide a solution. In 2006 she received one of her profession’s highest accolades, the National “Innovation Award” from the Dietitian’s Association of Australia in recognition of the unique and valuable international resource she provides for dietitians and the general community by stocking the best and most useful nutrition resources from around the world at Great Ideas in Nutrition.


Amanda Clark

Food of the Month

We read the marketing blurb for book recently that boldly stated: ‘Superfruits are the product of a strategy, not something you find growing on a tree.’ So, we have asked dietitian and nutritionist Catherine Saxelby to put some of those much touted ‘superfoods’ incuding ‘superfruits’ under the spotlight for GI News readers in the coming months and report on how ‘miraculous’ or ‘super’ they really are.


Catherine Saxelby

Goji
Goji (wolfberry) is the latest ‘superfood’ to attract health-food evangelists and multi-level marketers. Small, pink-red, dried and a little like a sultana without the sweetness, you hear all sorts of claims – high antioxidant concentration to help fight everything from premature aging to chronic disease (heart disease, Alzheimers) and boosting your immune system, energy and metabolism. It’s hard to know whether it’s true or just marketing overkill. Reliable independent nutrition information on goji is hard to source – even what you see on pack varies wildly – so what follows are only average figures. If you add a tablespoon (10 g or 15 dried goji) to your cereal and you’ll add 30 calories, around 1 g protein, a little fat and 6 g carbohydrate. Compared with dried fruits like sultanas or cranberries, they have more protein (due to their tiny seeds), a little fat and a much lower sugar content which explains the taste.



Antioxidants and vitamins: Goji have a high nutrient density – in other words, they pack in a lot of vitamins and antioxidants. But again not a lot of analyses have been done by reputable sources. You’d expect them to be rich in vitamin C, fibre and antioxidants with their many anti-ageing effects. And you’d expect to find small amounts of many essential minerals, such as potassium, iron, magnesium and phosphorus. What we don’t accept is the hype about “500 times more vitamin C than orange juice” or “more protein than whole wheat” which is simply not true – goji may be on a par but not that much more.

Goji are being promoted as having the “highest antioxidant concentration of any fruit or vegetable” and “an antioxidant rating more than 10 times that of blueberries”. Antioxidant levels will depend on how fresh the goji were when tested and which antioxidant test was used. Some tests put tea at the top as the highest in antioxidants, others put blueberries at the top. You can’t compare them – they measure different things.
Most of the medical claims about goji are difficult if not impossible to substantiate. While there are more than 70 published studies on goji and health, most are animal trials. So it’s hard to give an accurate opinion about their role in cancer or heart problems. I haven’t seen a human clinical trial published in peer-reviewed journals. Maybe there’s some coming out soon which would be helpful.

Unique polysaccharides: Then there’s the ‘four unique polysaccharides’ in goji which marketing material harps on about. No-one knows much about these but they are a major constituent – around 50% – of goji. Polysaccharides are a form of carbohydrate. Most – like the starch in potato – are digested in the body; some pass through like fibre. There's nothing miraculous about this even if they are ‘unique’.

The take-home messages

• Basically, goji is an over-priced superfood that’s getting lots of hype and helping health food stores do good business. You can get goji’s nutrients from other foods much more cheaply.
• Eat them if you like them and don’t mind paying their hefty price. If you prefer the juice, be aware that it is usually a blend of 10% goji with apple or grape juice concentrate. This not only improves the taste, it adds sugar – between 10 and 13% – the same as in a soft drink! So read the list of ingredients and make sure you check how much sugar you are going to get in a glass before you part with your money.
• As for the miracle claims – that’s what they are: claims. No single food can cure cancer, enhance male sexual performance or halt Alzheimer’s disease.

For more information on goji, check out Catherine’s website: www.foodwatch.com.au.
Catherine Saxelby is the author of Zest and Nutrition for Life available online.

Low GI Recipes of the Month

Our chef Kate Hemphill develops deliciously simple recipes for GI News that showcase seasonal ingredients and make it easy for you to cook healthy, low GI meals and snacks. For more of Kate’s fabulous fare, check out her website: www.lovetocook.co.uk. For now, prepare and share good food with family and friends.


Kate Hemphill

Chakchouka
Try this tangy Middle-Eastern dish for a special brunch or an easy-to-prepare light meal with a green salad on the side. You can make individual ones. Spoon the tomato mixture into four ovenproof dishes, add an egg to each and bake at 180C (350F) for about 15 or 20 minutes or until set. Sprinkle with chopped chives and serve.
Serves 4

1 tbsp olive oil
2 small red capsicum (pepper), seeded and thinly sliced
2 small green capsicum (pepper), seeded and thinly sliced
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1–2 small chillies, seeded and finely chopped
400 g (14 oz) can peeled chopped tomatoes
1 tsp harissa paste
¼ tsp salt (optional)
1 tsp caraway seeds, ground
½ tsp sweet paprika
½ tsp ground cumin seeds
4 large free-range organic eggs
4 slices grainy bread

• Heat the oil in a large frying pan and cook the sliced capsicum for 10 minutes or until soft. Add the garlic and chilli and cook for a further 1–2 minutes, stirring to combine. Add the tomatoes, harissa, salt and spices. Leave to simmer gently for 10–15 minutes, it should be reasonably thick.
• Make four indentations in the mixture using the back of a spoon and break one egg into each. Cover and leave to simmer for about 5 minutes or until whites are cooked and yolks are soft. Serve immediately with grainy bread.

Per serving
1145 kJ/ 265 calories; 13 g protein; 12 g fat (includes 2 g saturated fat and 244mg cholesterol); 24 g carbohydrate; 4 g fibre



Smoked chicken, chickpeas & carrot
Smoked chicken is available from supermarkets, delis and butchers pre-cooked and vacuum packed. It is a great addition to salads, and if serving hot, just requires a little heating through. If you can't get smoked chicken, use a grilled or poached chicken breast. This dish can be made into a salad by cutting the chicken into smaller pieces and serving at room temperature or chilled.
Serves 4–6

1 large garlic clove, crushed
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp cumin seeds
1/4 tsp smoked paprika
2 x 400 g (14 oz) cans of chickpeas, drained and rinsed
2 medium carrots, peeled and cut into 7 cm (2-inch) pieces, then into thin matchsticks
1 cup (250ml) chicken stock
juice of 1 lemon
large handful of roughly chopped parsley
2 smoked chicken breasts, sliced

• Cook the garlic in a little olive oil in a frypan over low heat for 2 minutes. Add the spices and cook for another 2 minutes, then add chickpeas, carrots and stock. Bring to a simmer and stir occasionally until carrots are just tender (around 10 minutes). Stir in the parsley, season to taste and turn off heat.
• In another pan, add sliced chicken pieces and some olive oil and toss over high heat until heated through. Serve chicken pieces on top of chickpeas.

Per serving (6 serves)

1400 kJ/ 330 calories; 36 g protein; 11 g fat (includes 2.5 g saturated fat and 80 mg cholesterol); 20 g carbohydrate; 7 g fibre

Busting Food Myths with Nicole Senior

Myth: Milk causes mucus (and other dairy myths)


Nicole Senior

Fact: Milk seems to attract more than its fair share of myths. This is unfortunate as it puts people off eating enough dairy foods when we know they are an important part of a healthy diet. One of the most common myths is that drinking milk causes mucus. When this has been studied in controlled conditions it has not stood up to scientific scrutiny. The thin coating you feel in your mouth is temporary and a result of the creamy texture. By the same faulty logic, chocolate and shortbread are “mucus-forming” yet no-one is blaming them. The other old chestnut is milk causes asthma, yet diet only affects 2.5% of people with asthma and milk is rarely the cause. The real triggers are allergens such as house pollen and dust-mite, respiratory infections and exercise.

It is also commonly believed that lactose intolerance is very common. In fact, an Australian review estimated that lactose maldigestion affects as few as few as 4% of adult Caucasians. But figures are thought to be higher among people of Chinese or Asian origin and Aboriginal people. African-Americans are also thought to have a greater prevalence. However even people with lactose intolerance can digest small amounts of lactose (like the amount in a glass of milk) without symptoms, especially if consumed as part of a meal. The amount of lactose in yoghurt is much lower because the bacterial cultures break-down the lactose. Hard cheese has negligible lactose. For the super-sensitive there are lactose-free milks and yoghurts available. Having said all this, there are those with milk allergy who must stay well-away from anything dairy-based or they become ill, however this unfortunate group makes up less than 1% of the adult population.

Milk and dairy foods are considered a core food – they even have their own food group. This is because they are nutrient dense and provide a package of nutrients that are not found in the same amounts in other foods. Dairy foods provide a bunch of essential nutrients including protein, calcium, phosphorous, magnesium, riboflavin and vitamin B12. They have a low GI and help lower blood pressure when consumed in a diet with plenty of vegetables and fruits. While whole milk, yoghurt, ice cream and cheese contain quite a whack of saturated fat, choosing reduced-fat and low-fat options gives you all the nutritional benefits without the clogged arteries. Most of us should aim for 2-3 serves a day as part of a healthy diet.



Nicole Senior is author of Heart Food and Eat to Beat Cholesterol available from www.greatideas.net.au
For more information on nutrition and heart health visit www.eattobeatcholesterol.com.au

Dr David’s Tips for Raising Healthy Kids

Out of sight out of mind
Parents often ask me what’s the simplest thing to do to help their kids to a healthy weight in a fast food/fake food world? My answer: turn your home into a nutritional safe zone. Purge the pantry and fridge of junk foods that are high in calories and low in nutrients and replace them with healthy alternatives. Why? It’s the easy availability of junk food can trigger overeating.



In fact, the tendency to eat simply because food is present was very clearly demonstrated in a study by Brian Wansink and colleagues at Cornell University involving 40 secretaries. Over a 4-week period, the researchers placed chocolate candies in clear or opaque bowls either next to or 6 feet away from their desks. After work hours each day, the researchers filled the bowls and tallied how many candies the secretaries has eaten. The bowls were rotated so that each secretary spent an equal amount of time with clear or opaque bowls, as well as next to the candy and 6 feet away from it. The result: the secretaries ate an extra 2.2 pieces of candy a day when the chocolate was visible through a clear bowl, and an extra 1.8 pieces when the bowl was on their desks.



– Dr David Ludwig is Director of the Optimal Weight for Life (OWL) program at Children’s Hospital Boston and author of Ending the Food Fight

Move It & Lose It with Prof Trim

Lift it and shift it
‘While I regularly go for a walk, and even sometimes go the gym for a light aerobics class, my gym instructor keeps trying to talk me into lifting weights. Is there any real reason why I should do this when all I’m after is some weight loss.’

Sounds like you might already be doing the weight lifting, with the extra weight you’ve been carrying around (no offence meant). However, putting that aside for a minute, let’s look at any possible advantages you may get from doing resistance training (which, incidentally, doesn’t have to mean lifting weights).

There’s little doubt that the best type of exercise for long-term weight loss is endurance (aerobic) exercise. This is where most fat energy is likely to be burned over the least amount of time. Endurance exercise where you are carrying your own body weight (such as walking), is also better than that where the body weight is supported (such as swimming or cycling). However, once you get to a certain level, it may be appropriate to look to something different.

Put it this way: Let’s say you start at around 100 kg and walk for 1 km. You might burn up let’s say 100 kcals of energy doing this. If you do it daily for several weeks, your weight might begin to drop, for example to down around 90 kg. Now, not only because you are lighter, but because you are fitter, it takes less effort to carry your body frame over the said 1 km. In fact it may only require 80 kcals, making the energy loss disproportionate to the effort involved. You would then plateau and stop losing weight.



You can do a number of things to break through this: You can go back up to 100 kg by carrying a 10 kg back pack, adding more energy to the effort. Or, you might change the type of activity to introduce some resistance exercise. This not only changes the effort, but can help maintain metabolic rate while your total body mass decreases (through decreased body fat). Hence you maintain muscle while losing fat.

So, while resistance training may not be recommended while you are still big (you’ll want to lose total mass as well as fat), your instructor might be providing some useful advice to get you to try some resistance work as you start to slim down. It can also make you stronger, which may be of value in normal daily living.


Dr Garry Egger aka Prof Trim

– Click for more information on Professor Trim.

Your Questions Answered

‘I’ve been attempting to use the glycemic index to help me consume the correct foods after intense workouts. But, I’m terribly confused as various articles on the subject sometime seems to contradict one another. Should I be having high or low GI carbs?’


Dr Emma Stevenson

GI News invited Dr Emma Stevenson from Northumbria University’s School of Psychology and Sports Sciences to answer this one: ‘The available literature is confusing and there are surprisingly few well controlled, scientific studies investigating the effects of high GI and low GI carbs on recovery from intense exercise. The early studies showed that consuming high GI carbs during recovery from exercise increased muscle glycogen resynthesis (over both a short recovery period of about 4 hours and over 22 hours) compared to consuming low GI carbs during recovery. This is not surprising as rapid muscle glycogen resynthesis requires a high insulin concentration and a high glucose concentration – both of which are observed following consumption of high GI carbs. More recently, my colleagues and I have shown in our studies that exercise capacity was improved in endurance athletes and following a low GI recovery diet over 24 hours as the low GI carbs allowed the athletes to burn more fat as a fuel and therefore possibly spare muscle glycogen. The same group also showed no differences in intermittent exercise performance in sports/games played when they consumed a high GI or low GI diet over 24 hours.

My advice based on our studies would be that if your recovery time between sessions is greater than a few hours then the most important thing is to consume sufficient carbohydrate and low GI carbs may provide the additional benefit of allowing your body to use fat as an energy source for a longer period after exercise. If your recovery time between sessions is short (i.e. less than 4 hours) then high GI carbs can provide a rapid source of glucose and result in a rapid insulin response that can speed the recovery of muscle glycogen. I would also recommend consuming a source of protein (milk, yogurt) during recovery to aid muscle recovery and reduce soreness.’

‘I am keen to bake my own low GI bread. I have found a recipe (it is one of Anthony Worral Thompson’s) that says: ‘This bread has an extremely low GI as the tough outer coating of the seeds makes them harder to break down.’ It has: ‘325 g strong wholegrain flour, 25 g wheatbran, 1 sachet fast action yeast (6 or 7g), 25 g sunflower seeds, 25 g sesame seeds, 25 g pumpkin seeds, 25g linseeds, 12.5 g muscovado sugar, half teaspoon salt, 1 tablespoon vegetable oil’. This is cooked at 200ºC for 40 minutes or so. How can I be sure it is low GI?’



‘We are often asked about low GI bread recipes. Sadly, we don’t have one ourselves,’ says dietitian and co-author of The Low GI Diet, Kaye Foster-Powell. ‘In fact it’s impossible to predict the GI of a recipe for baked goods because of the way the starches can change with cooking and other ingredients in the recipe will exert an influence on it’s glycemic impact well. A recent study published in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition showed that homemade breads that were proofed for shorter times had a lower final volume as well as a lower GI than those that were proofed for longer. Lower degrees of starch gelatinisation may explain this effect. Some early tests of the GI of specially manufactured breads suggested that at least half the “bulk” needed to be whole grains to effectively lower the GI. This would mean a recipe with for example, 250 g flour (wholemeal or white) plus 250 g whole cereal grains like rolled oats, rolled barley, kibbled wheat or seeds. These days, manufacturers use more novel ingredients like guar gum to lower the GI without using whole grains. With a staple, ‘everyday’ food like bread, testing is essential as it’s these foods (along with breakfast cereals) that can make a real difference to the overall GI of your diet.’

‘I only have a week to get into tip-top shape before a big, glamorous event. What can I do to reduce bloating and fluid retention and look and feel great?’


Prof Jennie Brand-Miller

Here’s what Prof Jennie Brand-Miller suggests.
• Do two 30-minute walks every day for a week (a total of 60 minutes a day), including one first thing in the morning to set your body clock.
• Up your fruit and veggie (bar potatoes) intake. Eat nine serves of veggies and fruit everyday (at least six serves of veggies), and the more colourful the better.
• Eat for flavour, enjoyment and wellness, not weight loss.
• Cut back on salt and salty foods.
• Buy some magic underwear

Your Success Stories

‘I have just started my sister on eating low GI food, hopefully she’ll have as much success as myself.’ – Vicki
‘I am a 50 year old female who had VERY unhealthy eating habits. I had spinal fusion in my neck in 2003, as a result my thyroid went haywire! Then in 2005 I had to quit my fast-paced job of 17 years because of four more herniated disks in my back. I weighed 130 lb. in 2003, as of July 2007 I weighed in at 192 lb. I had awful heartburn day and night, food cravings 24 hours a day, no energy, and just felt awful and bloated the whole time. I came across a story on GI and weight loss in a copy of Reader’s Digest at my doctor’s, and I went straight to the bookstore.



In the first six months I lost 49 lb, have energy to exercise AT LEAST every other day, the cravings are gone, the bloating and heartburn are gone, my back is not in constant pain because of the weight loss, and my thyroid has stabilized. I still take synthroid, but the dose does not increase every four months. My skin and hair are much healthier too. Best of all I am now able to take full time care of my 87 year old aunt with Alzheimer’s, who can no longer live alone! The six months of eating low GI foods has made me feel 30 again. I do not even call it a diet, it’s eating good, healthy food for my body. Going to restaurants is not difficult either if you know what foods to eat, and what to stay away from.’

‘I am over 73 years old and have not felt this good in years.’ – Robert
‘On my last visit to the VA in July, 2007, they informed me that I was pre-diabetic and issued me a glucose meter to monitor my blood sugar. My wife had heard about The New Glucose Revolution and purchased the book for me. The attached detailed chart is a progress report that shows when I implemented the low GI eating habits. I use the glucose meter every other morning. Most interesting, to me, is how small the glucose levers became when I added a 5 day exercise program. Note the notes on the chart, i.e. trouser size and weight. The detailed record was requested by my VA health care provider.


Click on graph for full sized view

‘Thanks to all those researchers for discovering the information about the GI for us.’ –Sue
‘After spending most of my life overweight and trying every weight loss program there is, I finally found low GI. What a revelation. The program of eating was simple, I enjoyed finding out the GI values of foods and couldn’t believe how easy it has been to lose 19 kg, feel terrific, not hungry at all and have far more energy than before.’

GI Symbol News with Alan Barclay

Why do most dairy products have a low GI?
The unique combination of proteins and sugars that occur naturally in dairy foods that contain carbohydrates (cheese doesn't) are the reason that most have a low GI. In case you didn't know, the primary source of carbohydrate in dairy food is lactose, which in its pure form has a GI of 46.


Alan Barclay

We are often asked about dairy goods stimulating insulin secretion. First of all, it's important to note that all protein foods (yes that includes meat, fish and eggs) stimulate insulin secretion – that's why you may see them described as being 'insulinogenic' to use the technical term. However, the proteins in milk may be more insulinogenic than other protein foods because they are meant to help young mammals grow and develop. One of insulin’s many functions is to act as a growth hormone designed to drive nutrients into cells – not just glucose but also amino acids, the building blocks of new tissue. It is thought that milk may contain a unique combination of amino acids that in combination are more insulin stimulating than any others alone. There is no evidence that this either increases the risk of weight gain or lifestyle-related diseases like type 2 diabetes.

Milk and yoghurt offer us a a wide variety of convenient and calcium-rich foods and drinks for meals, snacks and drinks that are also low GI. Adding fruits and sweeteners often raises the GI of the final product. However, provided low or lower GI ingredients are used, the end product usually still has a low GI. There are now a large range of delicious and nutritious milks and yoghurts that meet the GI Symbol Program's strict nutrient criteria for kilojoules, saturated fat and calcium.

Milks
Just Natural Malt, Honey and Chocolate (99% fat free milk)
Dairy Farmers Skim Milk
Dairy Farmers Lite White Milk
Dairy Farmers Take Care Milk
Kids Selection Milk - 300 ml, 1 litre, 2 litre

Yoghurts
Nestle Diet Yoghurt range
Nestle All Natural 99% Fat Free Yoghurt range
Nestle Milo Energy Dairy Snack
Nestle Milo Mousse
Brownes Diet Yoghurt range
Dairy Farmers Thick & Creamy Light range
Brooklea light sensation range

Contact
Dr Alan W Barclay, PhD
CEO, Glycemic Index Ltd
Phone: +61 2 9785 1037
Mob: +61 (0)416 111 046
Fax: +61 2 9785 1037
Email: alan@gisymbol.com
Website: www.gisymbol.com.au

The Latest GI Values

Canned soups
Soups are great for light meals and lunches. Even as a snack in wintry weather. Over the years SUGiRS has tested a number of convenient canned and packet soups. Fiona has just completed testing another:
Campbells Country Ladle Chicken and Vegetable with Wholegrain Pasta canned soup. Here are the details:
GI 45; Serve size 1 cup (250 ml); Carbs per serving 11g; Glycemic load 5

Where can I get more information on GI testing?
North America
Dr Alexandra Jenkins
Glycemic Index Laboratories
36 Lombard Street, Suite 100
Toronto, Ontario M5C 2X3 Canada
Phone +1 416 861 0506
Email info@gilabs.com
Web http://www.gilabs.com/

Australia
Fiona Atkinson



Research Manager, Sydney University Glycemic Index Research Service (SUGiRS)
Human Nutrition Unit, School of Molecular and Microbial Biosciences
Sydney University
NSW 2006 Australia
Phone + 61 2 9351 6018
Fax: + 61 2 9351 6022
Email sugirs@mmb.usyd.edu.au
Web http://www.glycemicindex.com/

New Zealand
Dr Tracy Perry
The Glycemic Research Group, Dept of Human Nutrition
University of Otago
PO Box 56 Dunedin New Zealand
Phone +64 3 479 7508
Email tracy.perry@stonebow.otago.ac.nz
Web glycemicindex.otago.ac.nz

See The New Glucose Revolution on YouTube

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GI News endeavours to check the veracity of news stories cited in this free e-newsletter by referring to the primary source, but cannot be held responsible for inaccuracies in the articles so published. GI News provides links to other World Wide Web sites as a convenience to users, but cannot be held responsible for the content or availability of these sites. This document may be copied and distributed provided the source is cited as GI News and the information so distributed is not used for profit.

© ® & ™ The University of Sydney, Australia

TEXAS: impending execution

Days from execution, inmate pins hopes on woman's story


Lester Bower, at the Polunsky Unit in East Texas, has been on death row since 1984. He acknowledges meeting 2 of the victims on the day they died but has denied involvement in their slayings.

Witness says condemned man isn't responsible for 1983 slayings

Since 1984, Lester Leroy Bower Jr. has sat on Texas death row, convicted for the 1983 massacre of 4 men in a Sherman airplane hangar.

The Arlington man now faces execution on July 22, and as time runs out, his lawyers are fighting to save his life by trying to prove he was not the killer after all.

One key witness, a woman who came forward years ago, says it was her then-boyfriend and 3 other drug dealers who were responsible for the slayings.

Though a prosecutor says she is certain that the right man has been convicted, Bowers lawyers say their investigation has verified key details of the woman's story.

But for Bower, will it be too late?

-------------------------------------------------

Just a few paragraphs into the Star-Telegram story, the woman knew something was terribly wrong. A man named Lester Leroy Bower Jr. was on death row for the 1983 massacre of four men in a Sherman airplane hangar, she read that morning in 1989. But the woman, who asked to be identified by the pseudonym "Pearl," had reason to believe that Bower wasn't the killer at all that it was her ex-boyfriend and three others who had committed the crime.

The woman showed the story to her sister, the one person she had told of her suspicions about the old boyfriend.

"Theyre going to put that guy to death for that," she remembers her sister saying.

"Yeah, I know," Pearl replied.

"But he didn't do it?"

"No," Pearl said.

"You've got to do something," the sister said.

After a day of struggling with fears for her own life, Pearl did. The next day, she contacted Bower's lawyers from Washington, D.C., told them her story and signed a legal affidavit attesting to it.

Now, 19 years later, information she related is at the heart of an increasingly urgent effort to save Bower's life. On July 22, after 24 years on Texas death row, Bower is scheduled to die by lethal injection.

Bower's lawyers say they have identified the 4 men whom Pearl alleges to be the killers, have documented their long criminal records and have confirmed other key parts of her story. In recent months, a defense investigator has also located another witness, the wife of one of alleged accomplices who said she heard the 4 men discussing the killings. The names of the new suspects, though known to defense lawyers, have remained sealed by court order.

"I don't want Mr. Bower to die for something that he didn't do," said Pearl, who broke up with her boyfriend shortly after the slayings and remains fearful of him today. Since she signed the affidavit in 1989, her identity has been concealed by court order. "I know in my heart that he didn't do it. I just could not in my conscience sit back and just go, 'Oh well, sorry.'

Source for both: Fort Worth Stgar-Telegram

The Murky Evidence for and Against Deterrence

Although the Supreme Court banned capital punishment for child rape last week, the justices have made it clear that for homicide, states may inflict the ultimate penalty. Last month, capital punishment resumed after a seven-month moratorium. Rapid scheduling of executions followed the Supreme Court's ruling in Baze v. Rees, reaffirming the constitutionality of the death penalty in general and lethal injection in particular.

To support their competing conclusions on the legal issue, different members of the court invoked work by each of us on the deterrent effects of the death penalty. Unfortunately, they misread the evidence.

Justice John Paul Stevens cited recent research by Wolfers (with co-author John Donohue) to justify the claim that "there remains no reliable statistical evidence that capital punishment in fact deters potential offenders." Justice Antonin Scalia cited a suggestion by Sunstein (with co-author Adrian Vermeule) that "a significant body of recent evidence" shows "that capital punishment may well have a deterrent effect, possibly a quite powerful one."

What does the evidence actually say?

One approach notes that in states with the death penalty, the average murder rate is about 40 % higher than in states without the death penalty. Yet such comparisons are surely confounded by other influences, as those states that impose the death penalty also have a historic culture of violence, including lynching.

If we compare countries, the United States has higher execution and higher homicide rates than nearly all other industrialized countries. Here, too, many alternative explanations remain, making it hazardous to conclude that the death penalty does not deter murder.

Other studies have evaluated changes in homicide rates over time. In the 1960s, as the death penalty fell into disuse, homicide rates rose sharply, leading some studies to infer a deterrent effect. Moreover, a large-scale decline in homicide in the past two decades coincided with renewed use of the death penalty. Countering this, homicide and execution rates rose together in the 1920s and early 1930s, then fell together through the 1940s and 1950s. Because conclusions are so sensitive to the time period evaluated, these studies fail to provide much help.

More sophisticated studies compare the evolution of homicide rates across jurisdictions. Over the past 6 decades, the homicide rate in Canada has tracked that in the United States even as the countries' punishment policies have diverged sharply. Similarly, the 12 states that have not executed a prisoner since 1960 comprise a useful comparison group; murder rates in these states have largely tracked those in states that subsequently adopted or rejected the death penalty.

One might like to conclude that these latter studies demonstrate that the death penalty does not deter. But this is asking too much of the data. The number of homicides is so large, and varies so much year to year, that it is impossible to disentangle the effects of execution policy from other changes affecting murder rates. Moreover, execution policy doesn't change often or much. Just as a laboratory scientist with too few experimental subjects cannot draw strong conclusions, the best we can say is that homicide rates are not closely associated with capital punishment. On the basis of existing evidence, it is especially hard to justify claims about causality.

Justice Stevens argues, "In the absence of such evidence, deterrence cannot serve as a sufficient penological justification for this uniquely severe and irrevocable punishment." Perhaps. But the absence of evidence of deterrence should not be confused with evidence of absence.

Justice Scalia relies on the suggestion by Sunstein and Vermeule that some evidence suggests a possible deterrent effect. But that suggestion actually catalyzed Donohue and Wolfers's study of available empirical evidence. Existing studies contain significant statistical errors, and slightly different approaches yield widely varying findings, a problem exacerbated by researchers' tendency to report only those results supporting their conclusions. This led Sunstein and Vermeule to acknowledge: "We do not know whether deterrence has been shown. . . . Nor do we conclude that the evidence of deterrence has reached some threshold of reliability that permits or requires government action."

In short, the best reading of the accumulated data is that they do not establish a deterrent effect of the death penalty.

Why is the Supreme Court debating deterrence? A prominent line of reasoning, endorsed by several justices, holds that if capital punishment fails to deter crime, it serves no useful purpose and hence is cruel and unusual, violating the Eighth Amendment. This reasoning tracks public debate as well. While some favor the death penalty on retributive grounds, many others (including President Bush) argue that the only sound reason for capital punishment is to deter murder.

We concur with Scalia that if a strong deterrent effect could be demonstrated, a plausible argument could be made on behalf of executions.
But what if the evidence is inconclusive?

We are not sure how to answer that question. But as executions resume, the debates over the death penalty should not be distorted by a misunderstanding of what the evidence actually shows.

Source: Washington Post; Cass R. Sunstein is the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. Justin Wolfers is assistant professor of business and public policy at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School

Die-in de Paris

Le "die-in" organisé chaque année à Paris pour demander l'abolition de la peine de mort aux Etats-Unis et dans le reste du monde aura lieu le

2 juillet 2008

à 18 heures

Place de la Concorde (Paris)

face à l'ambassade des Etats-Unis.

Warden on death penalty: "This is wrong"

TALLAHASSEE — Murderer Pedro Medina was strapped into "Old Sparky" shortly after midnight on March 25, 1997, at Florida State Prison.
Warden Ron McAndrew stood nearby as a guard placed a wet sponge to conduct more than 2,000 volts of electricity onto Medina's shaved head.

The executioner pulled the switch. Within seconds, an arm's length from McAndrew, 6-inch flames leaped out the side of the mask on Medina's head.

The cramped chamber immediately filled with smoke and a putrid, acrid odor.

The executioner, wearing oversize insulated gloves that protect linemen working on electrical wires, sought advice from the warden.

"He looked at me with this big question on his face, and he said, 'Continue?' " McAndrew recalled recently. "I said, 'Continue. Continue.' There's no way we could stop at that point."

Medina's searing death and two executions before it led McAndrew down an unlikely path since he quit prison work: He is a working opponent of the death penalty.

"All three executions ignited a fire of thought," McAndrew said. "Each time I carried out one of those executions, I certainly was asking myself why I was there and is this necessary."

Witness entire process, ex-warden says

On Tuesday, Florida plans to execute by lethal injection Mark Dean Schwab, who raped and strangled 11-year-old Junny Rios-Martinez of Cocoa. McAndrew opposes the execution.

During his time at Florida State Prison, McAndrew earned the moniker "The Walking Warden" because he spent more time outside his office walking the grounds than behind his desk.

He said he visited Death Row every day.

McAndrew said he supported the death penalty during his 20-plus years with the Department of Corrections.

"One day I just sat down and said, 'This is wrong. This is wrong. We have no business killing people,' " he said, except in self-defense, in defense of someone else or in defense of the nation.

Not everyone agrees.

Proponents of the death penalty, including some families of murdered children such as Rios-Martinez, argue that the execution helps them deal with their loss.

"That will not serve as a substitute for getting our son back, but it is as close as we can get to justice in this rather imperfect world we live in," said Don Ryce, whose 9-year-old son Jimmy was raped, murdered and dismembered in Miami-Dade County in 1995. Juan Carlos Chavez was convicted of the crime.

Ryce said Chavez's execution would bring his wife, Claudine, and him "as close to a feeling of peace to that chapter of our life that we're ever going to get." He said he supports the death penalty, although he may not live to witness Chavez die because of the lengthy appeals process.

"He'll probably outlive us because of our screwed-up system," Ryce said. "But if we're still alive, we'll be there for the execution. And we have had some people promise us if we don't make it, they'll be there for us."

"From the standpoint of not only myself but Claudine, we feel the death penalty is appropriate in this case, knowing that won't bring our child back. Knowing there's no such thing as closure. Knowing that justice has been done. We don't feel that way yet," said Ryce, of Vero Beach.

Although McAndrew understands the feeling of the victims' families, the executions he witnessed still haunt him.

Schwab's will be the first execution since former Gov. Jeb Bush put a moratorium on executions in 2006 pending a U.S. Supreme Court ruling on lethal injection. The court ruled recently that lethal injection is not cruel and unusual punishment.

McAndrew, a slow-spoken activist, grows agitated when talking about lethal injection and the likelihood that executions will resume in Florida.

The most recent inmate executed by lethal injection, Angel Diaz, took more than 30 minutes to die because the needles had been pushed through his veins into his flesh.

But none of the 26 witnesses on the other side of the glass window looking into the execution chamber knew that because, when the curtains behind the window were opened, Diaz was already on a gurney with IVs in his arms.

"If they're going to be honest and forthcoming about what's going on in the death chamber, then from the second the condemned walks into the chamber until the body is placed in a body bag, all 26 witnesses should be there," McAndrew said.

Opponents welcome an insider's voice

Other death penalty opponents tell him that he's an invaluable resource.

"They say only someone who's been that close to it can speak about it in the way that you do," McAndrew said, his voice growing soft.

The former Air Force sergeant began his career in corrections after returning to the United States following a 15-year stint living and traveling throughout France and Asia as a manager for an international exporter.

He never imagined then that, less than two decades later, he would be the warden of one of the state's toughest institutions, landing in 1996 at Florida State Prison.

There, he oversaw three executions in the electric chair: John Earl Bush, John Mills Jr. and Medina.

His first experience, Bush's execution, was uncomfortable, he said. Bush had killed 18-year-old Frances Slater after abducting her from a Stuart convenience store.

The members of the execution team told the warden that it was a tradition to have breakfast at Shoney's after the early morning executions.

"I got to Shoney's and the food started looking very disgusting," McAndrew said. "At the table directly in front of me, I could see the back of the female attorney (for Bush). She turned and looked over her shoulder at me. She had a look of pain on her face."

He left without eating.

'I'd had all the breakfast I could stand'

Starke is a small town with a population of about 5,500 people, most of whom work at the nearby prison, have retired from there or have family members who do.

Everyone at the restaurant knew the group had performed the execution.

What troubled McAndrew was that the public might misconstrue the breakfast as celebratory.

Before the next execution, McAndrew spoke with the colonel on the team: "I told him I'd had all the breakfast I could stand."

Paul Schauble Jr. spent more than a decade as a Death Row officer, taking condemned inmates to showers and recreation and delivering their meals.

He doesn't have any qualms about the job he performed for 12 years.

"Most of us believe we have a job to do. And whether I believe they are innocent or deserve their punishment, my job is to make sure they stay inside the fence and I take care of all their needs and then I go home," Schauble said.

Although he didn't enjoy it, he believes that the prisoners he tended to deserved to die because their crimes were so egregious and their court appeals, over and over again, had been exhausted. He has been the target of Death Row inmates' wrath. He has been hit with feces and bricks, been gouged and stitched up.

The union representative of the Police Benevolent Association doesn't have a lot of sympathy for the prisoners.

"By the time they get on Death Row, the investigation is so extensive ... I truly believe they are guilty of that crime," Schauble said.

Before dawn on the day of the execution, McAndrew would sit on the side of the inmate's bunk and read the death warrant aloud after explaining that he was required to do so by state law.

"You ask them if there's anything you can do for them. If there's any phone call you'd like me to make, I'll be glad to do that," McAndrew said.

Those last moments alone with the person whose death he was about to facilitate haunt him.

"They share things with you in those last moments too, things that you'll never talk about again," he said.

The positions are reversed now.

"These men come and sit on the edge of my bed, so to speak," McAndrew said. "In my mind, I see them a lot. I wish I had never been involved in carrying out the death penalty."

Source: Palm Beach Post.com

Iran condemns 'Israeli spy' to death

TEHRAN, Iran (CNN) -- Iran has sentenced to death a man found guilty of spying for Israel, state media reported Monday.

Tehran's Revolutionary Court convicted Ali Ashtari, 45, of spying for Israel's intelligence agency, Mossad, in exchange for money, the news agencies said.

According to Ashtari's "confession," published by the news agency Fars, Ashtari was a salesman who obtained high-end but security-compromised electronic equipment from Mossad and sold them to military and defense centers in Iran.

During the trial prosecutors displayed spying tools that Mossad had allegedly provided, Iranian Student's News Agency said.

Ashtari can appeal his verdict, the Islamic Republic News Agency said.

Iran and Israel have been engaged in an escalating war of words.

Iran accuses Israel of trying to destabilize the republic. Israel has not ruled out military action to halt Iran's nuclear aspirations.

Source: CNN.com

Cheese alert! Is Anchor trying to pull a swifty?

Anchor has a block of Edam cheese on the market. It's the same width as the standard 1kg block of cheese. It is the same length as a standard 1kg block of cheese. It's a similar price as a 1kg block of Home Brand cheese. It looks like a 1kg block of cheese. It probably tastes like a 1kg block of cheese.

But the Anchor block of cheese is not a 1kg block of cheese.

It is 900g.

That's because the block is not as high as a standard 1kg block of cheese, but you wouldn't know that as you can't easily see how high the cheese is when it is displayed. And, starting tomorrow, this block will ave a special price of $8.89 at Countdown and Woolworths just to hook more into buying it. Hook you? Well, it is Anchor cheese.

But it's not a bad price for a 1kg block of cheese, if you're fooled. We weren't. But we can't find a 1kg block of Anchor cheese anywhere. Not even on the website. That's because they stopped making it about six weeks ago. Furthermore, we won't when be fooled when the 900g block comes off the special price, either - back up to $13.49 or $15.49 for a tasty block .

Anyway, here's The Muttonbirds.

Nobbling National has nothing to do with policy

Matt McCarten considers that Labour's only possible chance of winning the general election is to hope it can nobble National's John Key by exposing him as a lightweight.

But to do that properly, Key has to be a lightweight to start with. If he is no lightweight, McCarten thinks Labour has lost the election even if it has better policies than National.

That's also Labour's strategy, but despite claiming National has no policies, the country doesn't want Labour's policies, at this stage they`d rather have the policies that National is yet to announce. Unfortunately National is becoming more like Labour. Helen Clark doesn't answer questions she doesn't want to, she walks away despite having an answer to one particular question for six months. When John Key gets asked questions he doesn't want to answer, he refuses to answer the question.

At least he doesn't walk away. That would just be too much like the outgoing Prime Minister.

Florida prepares for 1st execution since foul up

Florida's new procedure for lethal injections could be tested Tuesday when executioners strap down a condemned inmate for the 1st time since a botched execution.

Mark Dean Schwab, 39, is scheduled to die exactly 16 years after he was sentenced in the 1991 kidnapping, rape and murder of 11-year-old Junny Rios-Martinez.

Florida officials say they have resolved problems with the December 2006 execution of Angel Diaz when needles were accidentally pushed through his veins, causing the lethal chemicals to go into his muscles instead, delaying his death for 34 minutes - twice as long as normal. Some experts said that would cause intense pain.

Then-Gov. Jeb Bush stopped all executions after Diaz was killed, but Florida and other states were also held up as they waited for the U.S. Supreme Court to rule the three-drug method of lethal injection used by Kentucky was constitutional. 34 other states, including Florida, use a
similar method.

Florida's new procedure requires the warden to make sure the inmate is unconscious following the injection of the first chemical, sodium pentothal. Then the executioner will inject pancuronium bromide to paralyze his muscles and potassium chloride to stop his heart. It also
requires people with medical training to be involved in the process.

Schwab and his attorneys aren't so sure the problems are fixed. An analysis done for Schwab's lawyers showed that nine of the 30 mock executions performed by Florida's Department of Corrections between September 2007 and May were failures, said one of his state-paid
attorneys, Mark Gruber.

The corrections department said its mock exercises have included preparation for potential problems such as a combative inmate, the incapacity of an execution team member, power failure and finding a vein.

"Training for the unexpected is not a failed mock execution," said Gretl Plessinger, a corrections department spokeswoman. "We're planning for contingencies."

Schwab's legal options are running out. On Friday, the Florida Supreme Court rejected his latest appeal claiming the new procedure still carries the risk of causing intense pain and suffering.

The state has argued successfully in several courts that the procedure meets all constitutional tests against cruel and unusual punishment and that Schwab cannot raise the issue again.

Schwab's attorneys did not return calls after the appeal was rejected Friday, but they are expected to next turn to the federal courts. The U.S. Supreme Court has allowed eight lethal injections to continue since upholding the Kentucky case.

That ruling raised a lot of questions, said D. Todd Doss, an attorney in northern Florida who has handled several death penalty cases but isn't involved in Schwab's appeals.

"I didn't think it cleared the legal landscape," Doss said, because it did not determine whether there was a substantial risk that Schwab would experience intense pain and suffering.

Senior Assistant Attorney General Kenneth S. Nunnelley said Schwab's claims in 2 previous challenges to lethal injection have also been rejected. "He does not get another bite at the apple," he said.

Family of Schwab's victim are counting down the days to execution with a timer on a Web site devoted to the boy. They've been through years of appeals, and they decided not to comment on the latest.

"The roller coaster has begun, and we don't want to get on," Vickie Rios-Martinez, Junny's mother, said recently.

Schwab raped and killed Junny a month after he was released early from a prison sentence he got for raping a 13-year-old boy, who was from Cocoa, a small town on the Atlantic coast of Florida.

Schwab got close to the boy and his family by posing as a reporter who promised to help the boy with his dream of becoming a professional surfer.

On the day of the rape and murder, Schwab called the boy's school posing
as his father, then picked him up there.

The case prompted Florida's Junny Rios-Martinez Act of 1992, which prohibits sex offenders from early release from prison or getting credit for good behavior.

"The state is the one who is the biggest victimizer. They let him out. They knew who he was," the boy's mother told The Associated Press in November.

Schwab's execution is to be held at the state's death chamber in Starke, which is about 40 miles southwest of Jacksonville.

Source: Associated Press

The Easiest Method to Melt Chocolate

Once you've tried this method, you'll probably abandon all other methods such as microwaving and melting in a double boiler. Even if the chocolate is old or dried out a bit, this method restores it beautifully.

Place chocolate squares in a glass bowl. Pour boiling water over the chocolate. Use a flat dinner knife to test the squares and when they're completely soft, pour off the water.

It's as simple as that!

MACA - What is this?

Maca is a root that grows in the high mountain regions of Peru. Lately, I've started taking it for peri-menopausal symptoms and high estrogen levels. I must admit my energy levels are better and my general sense of well-being has improved. Perhaps it really does balance hormones as they say. If you're suffering from hot flashes, depression, low libido, etc. this supplement is supposed to alleviate all of that. Maca is very popular in Peru and Central American countries. Some doctors are beginning to recognize its benefits. You can find Maca at www.netrition.com

Candida or yeast in the body sabotages weight loss

Dr. Atkins had a chapter on metabolic resistance to weight loss. If I remember correctly, one of them was medications, another hypothyroidism and another Candida. In fact, he had a story in there about a woman who was having great difficulty losing any weight at all. Once the Candida was addressed, she lost weight with ease. The Vita-Nutrient book by Dr. Atkins has a good write-up on Candida and what to do.

If Candida (which everyone has) gets out of hand, all sorts of things can go wrong creating many strange symptoms, even paresthesia (numbness and tingling). Some research I did, showed some pretty serious diseases and other symptoms, but since everyone has Candida, I didn't want to scare anyone. I cannot wrap my mind around all those symptoms. Keep it simple and keep Candida down to a dull roar.

"Classic symptoms of Candida"

Gastrointestinal: indigestion, gas, bloating, inflammation, pain, diarrhea, constipation, heartburn, bad breath, dry mouth, coating on tongue, thrush.

Somatic and Allergic: numbness, burning or tingling; painful, swollen, stiff joints; muscle aches and tension, nasal congestion, head tension, headaches, blurred vision, tinnitis, shortness of breath, chest pains, weight loss dizziness, sinusitis, chemical sensitivity.

Mental/Emotional: depression, mental confusion, insomnia, nervousness, anxiety, disorientation, impaired decision making, low energy, hyperactivity, agitation.

Skin: white fungal skin patches like dandruff, acne, athlete's foot, anal itch, diaper rash, psoriasis, dermatitis, impetigo, finger and toenail inflammation.

Sexual: vaginitis, discharge, itch, bladder infection, menstrual irregularities, pain, cramps, lowered libido, infertility, impotency, prostate problems.

Urinary: Frequent urination, burning and desire to urinate, fluid retention, edema.

Here are other ways to recognize if it is getting out of hand:

I do the spit in water in a glass test in the morning: Candida Saliva Test

Apparently, if you stick out your tongue and it has a white coating, you have a bit more yeast than you need.

Treatment involves diet and enough fiber to flush out toxins as the yeast dies off, Probiotics (how much is an individual thing), and anti-fungals to kill some of the Candida. Anti-fungals such as caprylic acid (pretty powerful) and garlic are effective. Here are some more anti-fungals:
Anti-fungals

It is important to drink lots of water.

Candida Diet

Once Candida is under control, a feeling of well-being should return, symptoms will subside and disappear and weight loss will hopefully resume.

China: six executed for drug related crimes

June 26, 2008: six people were executed in Yunnan and Henan provinces, and the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region for dealing in large quantities of drugs in three separate cases, the Chinese Supreme People's Court (SPC) said.

In one case, Han Yongwan and Duan Biwu were involved in smuggling, trading and transporting more than 775 kg of heroin from February 2001 to September 2005, along the border areas of Myanmar, and Yunnan and Guangdong provinces. Under the law, dealing in a minimum of 50 g of heroin warrants the death penalty in some provinces of China. The amount differs in other provinces.

In the second case, Gao Guoliang and Li Yongwang were found to have produced nearly 9.8 kg of 'magu', a new type of drug. It is a combination of methamphetamine and caffeine.

The haul was seized in Henan province in 2006.

In the third case, He Jianjun and Zhang Fuyou were both repeat offenders. They trafficked 604 g of heroin from January to March 2007 in Nanning, capital of Guangxi.

Source: China Daily, 26/06/2008

KUWAIT ROYAL'S DEATH SENTENCE CONFIRMED

June 24, 2008: Kuwait's Supreme Court upheld a death sentence against a member of the emirate's ruling Al-Sabah family for drug trafficking.

The sentence against the royal, named only as Sheikh Talal, was already upheld by an appeals court in December. The final decision can only be carried out after being signed by the emir, who also has the right to commute it.

The appeals court also confirmed a life term against three accomplices, a stateless Arab, a Bangladeshi and an Indian. Two others, a Lebanese and an Iraqi, were sentenced to seven years in jail each. It is not clear if those rulings were revised by the Supreme Court.

Police arrested the group in April 2007 and seized a large drugs haul, including at least 10kg of cocaine and 120kg of hashish.

Source: The Age, 24/06/2008

More on the death penalty in Kuwait

Japan: Fear of imminent execution

MAKINO Tadashi (m), born 1950

Makino Tadashi, who lost his final appeal on 29 May, was in danger of execution in June, when a new round of executions was expected to take place.

Three men were hanged on 17 June, but Makino Tadashi was not among them. He remains on death row.

Source: Amnesty International

CHINA EXECUTES THREE FOR DRUG DEALING

June 25, 2008: China executed three drug dealers and sentenced five more to death on the eve of International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking, the state media reported.

Among the executed was a drug dealer from Taiwan, Tseng Fu-wen, who was executed in the eastern province of Fujian after the country's apex court approved a lower court's sentence against him.

A Shanghai court handed down sentences in four drug trafficking cases on June 23, giving capital punishment in three of them.

"As the number and scale of drug dealing cases have been increasing in recent years, the court has raised its strength to crack down," Zhang Zhijie, Deputy Chief Judge of the Second Intermediate People's Court of Shanghai Municipality, was quoted as saying by official Xinhua news agency.

Two others were sentenced to death by the Intermediate People's Court at Shenzhen in Guangdong province which pronounced sentences in seven cases, it said.

Sources: chinaview.cn, 24/06/2008; Business Standard, 25/06/2008

Iran: Execution of Minors Opposed

The European Union urged Iran not to execute a teenager who was convicted of committing a murder when he was 15. Contending that executing minors violated Iran’s international obligations and commitments, the European Union urged the government not to carry out the death sentence against Selah Taseh, who was born in 1992. It also called on Iran to halt plans to execute at least five other minors currently on death row. Under Iran’s laws in effect since the 1979 Islamic revolution, the crimes of murder, adultery, rape, armed robbery, apostasy, homosexuality and drug trafficking are all punishable by death.

Source: The New York Times

Self explanatory, really

Missouri schedules July 30 execution

A northern Missouri methamphetamine dealer is set to be the state’s first inmate put to death since October 2005.

The Missouri Supreme Court today set a July 30 execution date for John C. Middleton, who was convicted of killing two people in Mercer County in 1995.

Middleton, now 48, also was convicted in a separate case of killing a third person. He also received a death sentence in that case.

Prosecutors said Middleton killed the three to keep them from telling police about his methamphetamine operation.

Missouri has not executed an inmate since October 2005 when Marlin Gray was put to death.

Executions in the state and across the country had been put on hold while inmates raised legal questions about the constitutionality of the lethal injection method used in Missouri and most other capital punishment states.

But since April when the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of Kentucky’s lethal injection protocol, states have once again begun carrying out death sentences.

Nine men have been put to death since that ruling, and seven other executions are scheduled to die before Middleton, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

Middleton is housed at the Potosi Correctional Center in Mineral Point. He will be transported to the Eastern Reception, Diagnostic and Correctional Center in Bonne Terre, where the state’s execution chamber is located.

Source: kansascity.com