jenny cares 

SIX FOODS THAT WEAKEN BONES
Adapted from an article by By Melanie Haiken, Caring.com

Some ingredients actually leach the minerals right out of the bone, or they block the bone’s ability to regrow. Learn about Salt, Soft Drinks, Caffeine, Hydrogenated Oils, Vitamin D, and Alcohol.


1. Salt
Salt saps calcium from the bones, weakening them over time.
One study compared postmenopausal women who ate a high-salt diet with those who didn’t, and the ones who ate a lot of salt lost more bone minerals. Most people on a western diet ingest double what they should have daily... Key foods to avoid: processed and deli meats, frozen meals, canned soup, pizza, burgers and fries and canned vegetables.
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2. Soft Drinks
Soft drinks pose a double-danger to bones. The fizziness in carbonated drinks often comes from phosphoric acid, which ups the rate at which calcium is excreted in the urine. Meanwhile, soft drinks fill you up and satisfy your thirst without providing any of the nutrients you might get from milk or juice.
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3. Caffeine
Caffeine’s action is similar to salt (but not as bad), leaching calcium from bones. For every 100 milligrams of caffeine (the amount in a small to medium-sized cup of coffee), you lose 6 milligrams of calcium. ... can become a problem if you tend to substitute drinks like iced tea and coffee for beverages that are healthy for bones, like milk and fortified juice.
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4. Vitamin A
...Found in eggs, full-fat dairy, liver, and vitamin-fortified foods, vitamin A is important for vision and the immune system. ...it’s possible to get much more than the recommended allotment... Postmenopausal women, in particular, seem to be susceptible to vitamin A overload. Studies show that women whose intake was higher...had more than double the fracture rate of women whose intake was more sensible.
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5. Alcohol
..a calcium-blocker; it prevents the bone-building minerals you eat from being absorbed. And heavy drinking disrupts the bone remodeling process by preventing osteoblasts, the bone-building cells, from doing their job. ...not only do bones become weaker, but when you do suffer a fracture, alcohol can interfere with healing.
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6. Hydrogenated oils
...the process of hydrogenation, which turns liquid vegetable oil into the solid oils used in commercial baking, destroys the vitamin K found in the oils.
Vitamin K is essential for strong bones. Sources are green leafy vegetables, and a little from canola and olive oil. If you’re eating your greens, you don’t need to worry about this too much.
Avoid baked goods like muffins and cookies, and read labels to avoid hydrogenated oils.
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http://www.care2.com/greenliving/6-foods-that-weaken-bones.html?page=1

Sweeteners: The Sweet'n'Low-down  ...From baking to beverages, from HONEY to STEVIA to AGAVE, you have your choice of sweeteners that are helping create a cleaner environment and a more just marketplace.
from New America Dream

Sugar
Sugar is a valuable commodity that is grown from cane and sugar beets and is cultivated and processed with the aid of the following:
**pesticides, herbicides
**in the case of sugar beets, genetically modified seeds
**flocculants (synthetic and chemically processed), clarification agents and filter aids to process the juice
**the sugar is decolourized with sodium, bleaches or bone char
(therefore refined sugar is not recommended for vegetarians)
**beet sugar processing often uses sulphuric acid.

Honey
Organic and Fair Trade honey is recommended where available, or you can support your local economy and ecology by picking up locally produced honey at markets or roadside stands in your neighbourhood.

--farmers around the world employ beekeepers and their bees to pollinate their crops
--farmers, beekeepers, and ecologists are concerned about the loss of bees due to Colony Collapse Disorder - some attribute CCD to the widespread use of pesticides, and also disease and stress are being investigated.


Other Sweeteners
There are many other ways to satisfy your sweet tooth; some are even okay for diabetics.  Check out Care2’s Directory of Natural Sweeteners and read up on everything from agave nectar, barley malt, date sugar, fruit juice concentrates, fructose, maltose, maple syrup to stevia... also provides information on suggested uses and equivalents for cooking.

Why it’s important
--Poor farmers in the Developing World are vulnerable to fluctuating market prices, environmental degradation by sugar plantation owners and operators, and hazardous working conditions.
--Large amounts of herbicides and pesticides are commonly sprayed on sugar cane crops and burning and processing of sugar crops causes serious pollution of the ground, waterways and the air.
--On the other hand, Fair Trade Certified sugar cane is sold at a preset market price and to sweeten the deal, buyers agree to pay additional premiums above and beyond that market price.

RERERENCES:
--Care2's Directory of Natural Sweeteners
--Sweeteners... original article 
--Kangaroo Island Honey and Island Beehive website
--Fair trade honey and beekeeping
--(beehive) CCD or "colony collapse disorder" 
--WWF: Environmental Impact- Sugarcane