Fred Busch's Power Blog - Power Yoga Teacher Training Instructor Course

New Years Kenya Yoga Safari - Fred Busch Yoga Retreat Day 1

2011-12-28T11:28:00.000-08:00

Day 1 of AFRICA YOGA SAFARI has been perfect! Arrived this morning and made it to Shimei house which is so nice! Had a great day at the Nairobi National Park to give everyone a small taste of what is in store when we go on our 7 day Safari that departs kesho kutwa...(the day after tomorw - in Swahili). I love Kenya so much. I am so happy to connect with our AMAZING group. What a blessing!

Kenya Yoga Safari - New Years Retreat 2011 - 2012

with Fred Busch

The American Nutrition Institute - An Intergrative Health and Nutrition Certification

2011-12-22T21:27:00.000-08:00

Raw Food and Vegan Eating Masters Cynthia Olmstead and Fred Busch are on the board of Directors and faculty for The American Nutrition Institute.

The American Nutrition Instiute is a Raw Food and Vegan Food training and mastery program. Ready to learn the skills required to live the lifestyle you have always dreamed? The American Nutrition Institute offers 6-Day intensive Courses and online training programs for Culinary Arts and the art of instructing 'The Famous Food Talk' to future students and clients.

Located in Miami, Florida, The American Nutrition Institute certifies students who complete requirements for graduation.

6 Day Intensive

Morinings - Lectures with Fred Busch and Cynthia Olmstead

Afternoons - Raw Food and Vegan Foods Culinary Arts Training with Cynthia Olmstead.

Get ready to put on a chef's hat and get your hands 'dirty' with this hands - on culinary arts training school.

6 Months Online Program with Fred Busch

Once a week online lecture live with Fred Busch. Fred will deliver lecture live and students willl be able to chat questions. All students have access to Fred Busch through email or skype to answer questions throughought the program. This program is designed to instruct the next generation of healers and food masters who are ready to get out there and teach.

This training requires the following of a specific dietary regimen as instructed throughout the course after personal interview to determine best diet and approach on individual basis.

Studying nutrition at the American Nutrtition Institute provides a powerful way to help clients and students to grow in their physical and spiritual paths. We provide an integrative approach to nutrition. If you are a yoga teacher than nothing is more valuable than a certificate in Nutrition from the American Nutrition Institute.

The American Nutrition Institute offers certification in Presentation of Lecture, and Preparation in Culinary Arts skills for Raw Food and cooked Vegan Food as a means to prevent disease and obesity in America and around the world.

One of the primary missions of the American Nutrition Institute is to fight the war against Childhood Obesity. Childhood obesity is a scurge of society that will cost us in diminished quality of life for the children into their adulthood, and in the massive healthcare costs associated with the managment of obesity.

Join us for an introductory weekend Detox program called Game Changer.

Register for our powerful Life Changer , a 6 Day Intensive Course teaching the key skills for self mastery and succes in whatever food path you choose. ,Once you have completed Life Changer, you may apply to our advanced Teacher Training Life Saver course, a 6 Day Instensive training instructing the skills to chef for people who have cancer, diabetes, gluten free, vegan, raw, detox, obesity and more. Complete the 2 Weeks of Training and recieve your Natural Healing and Chefing Certificate.

Study under Fred Busch as he instructs you in how to deliver the most powerful talk on food ever created. Includes text book, homework, individual research, and dietary requirements. This training is only for serious motivated and commited people who are ready to use themselves as the example for what they teach.

Semester for American Nutrition Institute begins April 2012, registration open.

305.606.2169 or email fbusch911@gmail.com

Travel Begins When You...

2011-11-29T06:12:00.001-08:00

The point of yoga is to experience that you’re not your body; you’re not your thinking mind. You’re not limited or subject to change. You experience that in the peace of meditation because your body is not talking to you, your body is not bringing you back to it. You are able to essentially go travelling. The funny and most paradoxical thing is that the real travel begins when you’re absolutely still.

Have a great week!
-FB

Yoga Teacher Training Colombia - Fred Busch Power Yoga Instructor Course 2012

2011-11-23T11:50:00.001-08:00

I will be teaching a Power Yoga - Vinyasa Yoga Teacher Training Certification Course at Natural Yoga in Bogota in November 2012! Any questions please email director of operations for Fred Busch Power Yoga in South America -- Alex@limayoga.com or just email me any questions i am happy to answer and get to meet you! fredb@miamiyoga.com Subject: Teacher Training Colombia

Did you Know? Green Coconuts can be opened with a butter knife?

2011-11-23T11:33:00.000-08:00

Did you know? Did you know that you can open a green coconut with a butter knife? Most people think only a machete can do the job but a butter knife is much less difficult! At the place where the coconut is attached to the tree, if you look you will see little flaps hugging the top of the coconut. Simply slide the butter knife under these flaps across the circular tip and wedge the top right off! then just stick in your straw and enjoy what is literally the healthiest drink on earth. Green/Fresh coconuts are the best.

Thanksgiving & Good News, Bad News

2011-11-21T09:05:00.000-08:00

There is an old ancient story called “Good News, Bad News.”

So if you’re in the spiritual world, you may have heard these stories. There’s a Chinese farmer and the farmer has one horse and a strong young son. The son and the horse do all the work on the farm. The horse has the plough and the son does the thing. So all, the whole household relies on the son and the horse. Well, one day the horse jumps the fence and runs away. Now the son is without the horse, the whole village hears about this and the whole village comes over to them and offers them condolences, “Oh my god, it’s so bad, it’s such bad news, I’m so sorry for you, that you lost your horse, oh my gosh.” The farmer says, “Good news, bad news, who knows?”

The next day, the horse comes back and following the horse are five wild mustangs he pulled out of the mountains and they all jumped back in the pen. Now this guy has six horses. A horse is valuable back then. Six horses now. The village hears about it, they come running over to celebrate with him and happy, “Yes, good news, good news, celebration!” And he says, “Good news, bad news, who knows?”

These are wild horses and they have to get broken and have to tamed, right? Taming a wild horse requires breaking the will of the horse. You’re not allowed to be a horse anymore, you’re going to be mine, break the will, they don’t like it at first, and then the son hadn’t broken all five horses. Well one of them throws him really far and breaks. He says, “Good news, bad news, who knows?”

The next day, the army comes to town looking for all able body conscripts to go and fight some stupid war. Well, he isn’t an able body, so the son gets spared his entire life because he had broken his leg the day before.

So you see where we’re going with this? That which what you think might have been the problem, actually a lot of times becomes a blessing or an opportunity. And that which you thought was a blessing or an opportunity sometimes may not be. Things are not easily categorized so we don’t want to make any judgments about good or bad or right or wrong. We just want to experience, experience without judgment.

Have a wonderful, thankful week-
Fred Busch

Brickell Holiday Schedule - Thursday (Thksgv) ONLY 9am/10:30

Friday -ONLY 10:30am (with Fred)

Regular Schedule for WEEKEND

Did you know?

2011-11-18T14:24:00.000-08:00

Did you know? Did you know that if you want to double the lifespan of a mouse in a lab you simply feed it half the calories. This is true of all mammals including us. Want your dog to live longer? Feed him/her a bit less. Overeating is the most dangerous thing any animal can do as the effect on the digestive organs and the heart is not positive.

With food, less is more! Oxygen is our primary food, water is our next primary food, and 'food' is a far distant third!

Maraka Ewoi - Greatest Person and our Guide in Kenya

2011-11-17T09:29:00.000-08:00

Elogita Maraka Ewoi is one of the greatest people i have ever met in my life. He has influenced me in many positive ways as he does for all he meets! I met Maraka in 1995 and we have been close friends ever since! Maraka and our mutual best friend Mboya are two of our main guides for the Africa Yoga Safari.

Becoming friends with these amazing people is a priceless opportunity. We are supporting Paige Elenson's Africa Yoga Project as i will be teaching a huge Workshop in Nairobi on the last day! We will practice Yoga everyday... travel with our own chef... and be on SAFARI in a reserve that is very exclusive and wild.

We will be scouting for Leopards one minute...and walking to our Cabins the next. This is the real thing everybody with an infrastructure of my best friends who are Kenyans who have experience guiding americans on Safari for over 18 Years! Kwame my main partner is the owner of Shimei House our Nairobi base camp and we have been friends since University of Michigan in 1990's.

Going to Kenya with a better 'tour' i think is not possible! Nobody could have arranged a trip anything close to this since we are using exlusively my connections throughout the entire Safari! If you can't make it this year... Mungu Akipenda...Swahili for God Willing... you can make the next one!

We have 4 places left! Message me to register or ask questions.

Yoga Teacher Training - Yoga Instructor Course Europe 2012 - Malta

2011-11-16T10:56:00.000-08:00

POWER YOGA TEACHER TRAINING MALTA 2012

When: 18 February 2012 - 17 March 2012

Where: Junglespirit Centre, San Gwann, Malta

For more information about the program visit: http://www.junglespirit.org/beta/yoga-teacher-treaning

A 4-week intensive yoga teacher training program on the sunny Mediterranean island of Malta provided by Fred Busch Power Yoga guru.

Malta location map from worldatlas.com

Become an International Certified Yoga Alliance Instructor. The 200 and 500 hours Yoga Alliance certified Power Yoga Teacher Training is limited to 20 people. In order to book your place, first your application needs to be accepted.

Please send us an email to apply.

Email: junglespiritmalta(@gmail.com

Call: +356 9999 1844.

Visit: http://www.junglespirit.org/beta/yoga-teacher-treaning Visit: http://www.fredbusch.com/

Did you know?

2011-11-16T10:45:00.000-08:00

Did you know? Did you know that the most revealing characteristic of the enlightened person is Spontaneity. An enlightened Guru is rarely predictable and lives in the ever unfolding present. The ability to live without patterns and to be vigilantly aware of our freedom is the number one skill we all must practice.

Cell Phone Radiation Underestimated according to LA TIMES

2011-10-17T18:25:00.000-07:00

As i always say energy is real whether you can see it or not. This radiation is effecting us even though our eyes don't perceive it! Always use speaker phone and dont sleep in the same room as your phone and don't keep in your pockets near your reproductive organs!

LA TIMES Reports:

"Measuring radiation exposure using current FCC guidelines underestimates how much radiation most people receive from their cellphones, researchers said Monday in a study published in the journal Electromagnetic Biology and Medicine.

The authors of the study, including several members of Environmental Health Trust, a nonprofit organization devoted to identifying and controlling environmental health risks, pointed to several reasons why. One is that the current assessment method bases evaluations of how much radiation people are exposed to from their phones on measurements taken using a quite large, liquid-filled plastic model of the adult human head (known as the Specific Anthropomorphic Mannequin, or SAM). Smaller people -- 97% of the population, the authors wrote -- will have higher proportional exposure than what is assessed. Children receive twice as much microwave radiation to the head from phones as adults, the study estimated, and 10 times the amount to bone marrow.

Also, current assessments don't examine exposure to parts of the body other than the head, the study noted. Even when a phone is stowed away in a pocket, it continues emitting radiation that could pose a health concern.

The authors reviewed examples of research demonstrating negative effects of cellphone use, including recent epidemiological studies suggesting correlations between cellphone use and brain cancer. (Whether microwave radiation from cellphones can damage DNA and cause cancer is a subject of debate; click here to read a National Cancer Institute fact sheet on the subject.)

Vitamins linked with higher death risk in older women

2011-10-12T21:46:00.000-07:00

In my talks I mention that vitamins and minerals that are not found chelated into a living cell... that are not found in whole foods in other words, are not usable by the body. I use the word 'insulting' to describe the effect it has on the body. Here the BBC is explaining a bit of overdue evidence along these lines:

Vitamins linked with higher death risk in older women

By Michelle Roberts Health reporter, BBC News

When it comes to vitamins, it appears you could have too much of a good thing, say researchers who report a link between their use and higher death rates among older women. Experts have suspected for some time that supplements may only be beneficial if a person is deficient in a nutrient. And excess may even harm, as the study in Archives of Internal Medicine finds.All of the women, in their 50s and 60s, were generally well nourished yet many had decided to take supplements. Multivitamins, folic acid, vitamin B6, magnesium, zinc, copper and iron in particular appeared to increase mortality risk. The researchers believe consumers are buying supplements with no evidence that they will provide any benefit.

Harms v gains
They are quick to stress that their study relied on the 38,000 US women who took part in it recalling what vitamins and minerals they had taken over the previous two decades. And it is difficult to control for all other factors, like general physical health, that might have influenced the findings.But they say their findings suggest that supplements should only be used if there is a strong medically-based cause for doing so because of the potential to cause harm. "Based on existing evidence, we see little justification for the general and widespread use of dietary supplements," Dr Jaakko Mursu of the University of Eastern Finland and his research colleagues said.

Less is more
In the study, iron tablets were strongly linked with a small (2.4%) increased death risk, as were many other supplements. The link with iron was dose-dependent, meaning the more of it the individual took, the higher their risk was. Conversely, calcium supplements appeared to reduce death risk. However, the researchers say this finding needs more investigation and they do not recommend that people take calcium unless advised to by a doctor in order to treat a deficiency. Drs Christian Gluud and Goran Bjelakovic, who review research for the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews to evaluate best evidence, said: "We think the paradigm 'The more the better' is wrong." They say dietary supplementation has shifted from preventing deficiency to trying to promote wellness and prevent diseases, and caution: "We believe that for all micronutrients, risks are associated with insufficient and too-large intake." Helen Bond of the British Dietetic Association said some people, like the elderly, might need to take certain supplements. For example, vitamin D is recommended for people over the age of 65. But she said that generally, people should be able to get all the vitamins and minerals they needed from a healthy, balanced diet. She said some took supplements as an insurance policy, wrongly assuming that they could do no harm. "But too much can be toxic and it is easy to inadvertently take more than the recommended daily amount."

Yoga Safari - New Years Power Yoga Retreat with Fred Busch - Africa Yoga Project Benefit

2011-10-09T14:18:00.000-07:00

I am having trouble putting into words just what kind of life changing experience it is when one goes to Africa for the first time. It is not like other place i promise. Africa feels different, more primal, more powerful. Being able to spend time and share experiences with each other as a group and with Maraka Ewoi, Joseph Mboya, and Kwame Nyongo.

Mbobya, Kwame and I all agree that Maraka Ewoi may be possibly one of the greatest men we have ever known. I have known all these guys for over 15 Years and they are our guides!

The way it feels when you are on an actual safari is also something challenging to express. There is a silence out there that is awe inspiring. Sometimes the sounds are just sublime, like listening to the leaves rip off a tree as an elephant pulls down to eat them. Eagles calling from the trees and the grass blows and makes a gentle swaying sound in the wind.

As someone interested in yoga and maybe some bit of social change, it would be hard to go to Kenya with a better group! We travel with our own vegetarian chef named Hadington who has worked in Europe and now lives back home in Nairobi. He is a master chef and caters to all our wishes!

We are visiting and supporting by delivering yoga mats to Africa Yoga Project in Nairobi founded by Paige Elenson. We will get a tour of where they are teaching and maybe even get a sample class with a local teacher!

Our base-camp is in the bush like you can't believe! This lodge was built with money from UNESCO because the owners of this land are native Maasai Warriors who decided to conserve their VAST expanses of land and dedicate to wildlife conservation on private land. This trip and our staying at their lodge (hot showers--nice bathrooms-- nice cabins---not much else except the coolest place you have ever been in your life) is directly supporting their conservation efforts.

So if you want to travel in a way where you have the greatest time in your life with amazing people, with Yoga and amazing vegetarian food, with the ability to really support an amazing organization, and with the ability to help wildlife conservation in Kenya...well then this trip is for you!

you can see the page for our event on facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=148947428506800

I hope i have enticed you! If i am able to sway you to come somehow with us, i have a very strong feeling you will thank me.

if you are pretty interested please email me to fbusch911@gmail.com or just hit 'reply' and leave a phone number and i will call you myself!

blessings!!!

fred

Food Tax for Fatty Food in Denmark! Hooray!

2011-10-01T20:18:00.000-07:00

This is possible the most effective solution! Tax the fast food and tax the sugar like we are taxing the alcohol and cigarettes. What is the difference really? They are all causing the same undo strain on the health care network and are the seeds to disease and early death!

I hope the United States begins to tax fat and sugar also! It is a very powerful idea whose time has come!

Al Jazeera Reports today:

Denmark has imposed a fat tax in attempt to limit the population's intake of fatty foods, becoming the first country to take such a measure.

The new tax will be levied on all products that include saturated fats - from butter and milk to pizzas, oils, meats and pre-cooked foods.

The measure, designed by the outgoing government and announced on Saturday, will add 16 kroner [$2.87] per kg of saturated fats in a product.

Consumers over the past week hoarded butter, meat and milk to avoid the immediate price increase.

"We have had to stock up with tonnes of butter and margarine in order to be able to supply outlets," Soeren Joergensen of Arla Distribution told the AFP news agency.

Christian Jensen of an independent local Copenhagen supermarket said: "It has been a chaotic week with a lot of empty shelves. People have been filling their freezers.

"But actually I don't think the tax will make that much difference. If people want to buy a cake, they will buy it. But right now they're saving money."

Bureaucratic nightmare

Denmark's Confederation of Industries (DI) said that the new costing system was a bureaucratic nightmare for producers and outlets.

"The way that this has been put together is an administrative nightmare, and I doubt whether it will give better health. It's more just a tax," Gitte Hestehave, DI foodstuffs spokeswoman, told AFP, adding that the costs of levying the tax would be passed on to consumers.

Hestehave said that setting prices on domestically produced or imported goods was complicated, as it required declarations from producers both as to how much saturated fat was in the product itself, and used in its preparation.

Computer systems all had to be adjusted, adding many man-hours to administrative tasks for producers and sellers.

"Products that include other products that include saturated fats also have to have new prices worked out. Imported goods require a declaration from the producers abroad on exactly how much saturated fat has been used in production," Hestehave said.

"As far as we have been able to determine, Denmark is the first country in the world to introduce a fat tax, but we know that other countries are following us closely and have their own plans," she said.

EU studying tax

Some experts, however, say that the new Danish tax may not last long.

Jeppe Rosenmejer, an EU legal expert of the Danish Federation of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises, said the EU was studying the tax as there may be a competition issue.

While producers in Denmark have to pay the tax at source, for imported goods it is calculated by the distributor.

"This can mean that imported goods will be cheaper than domestically produced items," Rosenmejer told the national Jyllands-Posten daily.

A Danish producer will have to pay the tax on all of the saturated fat used, including for example what a product is fried in, he said. An importer may only be paying according to what is actually in the finished product.

"Hopefully the tax will be short-lived," Rosenmejer said.

The right-wing government that decided on the tax was superceded by a centre-left administration in elections last month.

prescription narcotic overdoses, drug deaths now outnumber traffic fatalities in the United States

2011-09-17T20:13:00.000-07:00

Because of the increase of people with prescriptions for all kinds of reasons and so many narcotics so commonly abused drug overdoses have overcome car accidents for cause of death in the USA.

LA Times Reports Today:

Propelled by an increase in prescription narcotic overdoses, drug deaths now outnumber traffic fatalities in the United States, a Times analysis of government data has found.

Drugs exceeded motor vehicle accidents as a cause of death in 2009, killing at least 37,485 people nationwide, according to preliminary data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

While most major causes of preventable death are declining, drugs are an exception. The death toll has doubled in the last decade, now claiming a life every 14 minutes. By contrast, traffic accidents have been dropping for decades because of huge investments in auto safety.

Public health experts have used the comparison to draw attention to the nation's growing prescription drug problem, which they characterize as an epidemic. This is the first time that drugs have accounted for more fatalities than traffic accidents since the government started tracking drug-induced deaths in 1979.

Fueling the surge in deaths are prescription pain and anxiety drugs that are potent, highly addictive and especially dangerous when combined with one another or with other drugs or alcohol. Among the most commonly abused are OxyContin, Vicodin, Xanax and Soma. One relative newcomer to the scene is Fentanyl, a painkiller that comes in the form of patches and lollipops and is 100 times more powerful than morphine.

Such drugs now cause more deaths than heroin and cocaine combined.

"The problem is right here under our noses in our medicine cabinets," said Laz Salinas, a sheriff's commander in Santa Barbara, which has seen a dramatic rise in prescription drug deaths in recent years.

Overdose victims range in age and circumstance from teenagers who pop pills to get a heroin-like high to middle-aged working men and women who take medications prescribed for strained backs and bum knees and become addicted.

Cancer is rising because nobody wants to prevent the obvious! BBC Reports: Warning over global cancer levels

2011-09-07T12:42:00.000-07:00

Cancer is on the rise at a very rapid pace. As i say, the herd is falling off the cliff. What is required to be seen and then acted upon, is the fact that so much of the new cancers are preventable. Cancer is truly preventable in so many cases! Prevention is better than cure because you get to live with your full health and vitality! Curing cancer is simply a matter of returning to an environment where the body can heal itself. The best place to go in my opinion for curing cancer under medical supervision is Hippocrates Institute in Palm Beach, FL. Come to my Famous Food Talk next weekend at Brickell Hot Yoga

Through use of intelligent vegetarian and vegan food and daily exercise, most cancers can be prevented. Most cancer is often a function of too much cooked proteins that end up feeding the cancerous cell before the natural defenses could kill it. If we cease from eating too much animal proteins and make sure we never use protein shakes because they are very dangerous to your health, then we are on the way to living a lifestyle where cancer is less likely to manifest.

Warning over global cancer levels

Rise in number of cancer cases reported

The number of new cancer cases has increased by 20% in under a decade and now stands at 12 million a year, according to the World Cancer Research Fund.

It warns that nearly a quarter of those cases are "preventable".

The figures have been released ahead of a United Nations meeting on diseases including cancer.

The WCRF said there was a "once in a generation" opportunity to reverse the trend.

It calculated that 2.8m new cancers each year are linked to diet, exercise and obesity.

The figure is expected to rise "dramatically" over the next decade, the organisation warned.

Professor Martin Wiseman, medical and scientific adviser for WCRF, told the BBC: "The truth is the number of cases around the world is going up partly because we are an ageing population, but also because of changes in lifestyle.

"As countries become more urbanised, they become more prone to the Western diseases that we are used to seeing. Not just cancers - coronary heart disease, diabetes, obesity and lung diseases."

He said: "Many people are still unaware that risk factors such as alcohol and obesity affect cancer risk, while from television advertising to the pricing of food, our society works in a way that discourages people from adopting healthy habits."

Later this month, the UN is holding a summit on non-infectious diseases such as cancer, heart disease and diabetes.

Professor Wiseman said the summit: "offers the chance to look at public health issues at the international level."

Yoga Teacher Training Quito Ecuador

2011-09-06T10:58:00.000-07:00

The Fred Busch Power Yoga Teacher Training Certification will be held October 10th, 2011 in Quito, Ecuador.

Fred Busch Power yoga is growing all over South America having just visited Bogota, Colombia and soon to be in Santiago, Chile.

We are excited to move to the Capital of Ecuador and meet the thriving yoga community in Quito.

For information or registration: 305 606 2169 or fredb@miamiyoga.com www.fredbusch.com

Namaste

fred

Gratitude is the Key! No days off a Yoga Sadhana

2011-09-04T12:38:00.002-07:00

Obstacles to well being are fear, greed, anger, hatred, all of the negative frequencies that can come up for us that are all stopping us from experiencing peace in our hearts. So as I said, I could have spoken this entire talk in five minutes because it’s overwhelmingly simple. It all comes down to, “Can you use awareness to improve the quality of your daily life by suspending your thoughts when they’re not related to gratitude or surrender or compassion?”

Can you practice asana everyday so that you can sit still? This is a spiritual practice. The word is called Sadhana. If you don’t know it, you’ve got to write it down. Sadhana is your spiritual practice. It’s a daily thing. So in our teacher’s training, our sadhana, a lot of it, some of it will be on the mats, there will be meditation at home. I will give you what your Sadhanas are. The sum total of everything that I tell you to do for your spiritual practice is your sadhana. There are no days off for sadhana, ever.

You already had your last day off from yoga. You already took it. Now your days off in yoga are over, every single day for the rest of your life, no exceptions. This is yoga. This is the real spiritual practice. If your physical practice is just physical and you go to the gym, say you’re really disciplined and you decide “I’m going to go to the gym every day for the rest of my life. I’m going to the gym; I’m going to work out every day.” Work out, physical stuff. Well someone gets in the way one day and tells you “It’s not easy to work out.” So what do you do? Just skip it! Big deal. Seriously, who cares? I dieted 58 straight days, I’ll get a day off. It’s not a big deal, who cares? Sadhana never takes a day off.

You don’t take a day off in giving thanks to God.

Forgiveness has nothing to do with the other person!

2011-09-04T12:38:00.001-07:00

When you’re not forgiving somebody, it’s because you’re holding on to hatred or you’re holding on to some sort of animosity. You’re holding on to a negative energy inside yourself about that. There’s something about them that when you think about them, you get mad. You get angry. You have not forgiven them. Now, who is suffering when that happens?
You.

164 Million Americans will be OBESE by 2030! Lets prevent the epidemic! Here is how!

2011-09-02T20:14:00.000-07:00

I just heard a report from the Journal Lancet that by 2030 164 Millions Americans will be OBESE. It is not talking about simply being overweight. Obese is a specific relative weight to height and is always associated with grave health deterioration. The same report calculated that the cost to the US in terms of healthcare for the Diabetes, Heart Disease, and Cancer that will result from this obesity to be around 66 billion dollars a year.

What a waste of life and money. Nobody who is obese can be enjoying the gift of life and so there is a lose - lose situation going on here. We are bankrupting our society all for no good reason, in fact we are doing so and at the same time people are living truly miserable lives!

Bill Clinton's CNN special on how to prevent Heart Attacks by eating differently should be a lesson to everybody who thinks they can not change lifestyle. He says so clearly that he enjoys what he eats so much now and that it is the most important thing he is doing to prevent a heart attack!

Prevention is better than cure! We can save our economy from all the people calling in sick, from all the money wasted on diseases, and from the depression and fear associated with obesity by just eating better and exercising like Yoga or swimming or fast walking!

We especially need to make sure we are teaching our children to not be overweight and obese by demanding that they play outdoors more and on the computer or video game consol less!

Always keep healthy food in the reach of young children so they get in the good habits and not try to manipulate parents into feeding them garbage.

It is so easy to change directions here! Where is the political or moral will to do so? Times are changing i hope and enough powerful people are beginning to see how important eating a vegan diet is to overall well being. Not just physical health results from eating better, but mental health also and importantly a feeling of overall fulfillment in life may come to all!

Please America and the rest of the world... stop eating garbage! Why treat the animals in the zoo better than you treat yourself! You would never feed an animal in the zoo different from their biological design, so why do we do that to ourselves? We are paying a HUGE price for this and we can stop following the herd off the cliff as soon as we lift our heads up and decide we don't want to go down that path of cancer, heart disease, diabetes and premature miserable death.

Kenya Yoga Safari - Africa New Years Retreat with Fred Busch Power Yoga

2011-08-31T09:47:00.001-07:00

Travel to Africa - HELP WILDLIFE CONSERVATION and AFRICA YOGA PROJECT! This is a trip that will help make the world a better place for local Kenyans and Kenyas efforts for conservation by supporting a local Wildlife Ranch run by Far-Sighted Kenyans who want to preserve and conserve the wildlife. Join us on Safari that will make a difference and see Lion, Elephant, Buffalo, Leopard, Giraffe, Hippos, Crocs, Impala, Hyena, Cheetah and so much more!!!!

The Kenya Yoga Safari will be a world class trip! I just got off the phone with my team in Nairobi and we are headed to a private game camp which is literally impossible for anyone without my connections to get to. It is in the 'BUSH' and it will be our home base! I can not express how excited i am to go there and bring my friends and students! I have two of my best friends in the world guiding us and the trip is literally gonna be UNBELIEVABLE. This area we are going usually prices at about $700 per night but with my connections we are going to a place that is run by local MAASAI and is absolutely pristine. I am giddy with excitement to bring people here!

Deposits are coming in now! Join the small group going to spend New Years in Africa for the Kenya Yoga Safari with me and my incredibly close Kenyan friends.

We will be guided and spending time with Maraka, Mboya, and Kwame, friends who have been like brothers to me for over 18 years.

We will be bringing donated yoga mats from the states to support the Africa Yoga Project, and hopefully raise some small donations to assist their world changing mission! And in addition to our two big safaris, we will tour their Nairobi yoga classes and meet local Nairobi teachers who Paige has tranformed their life from street kids who would sniff glue and be hopeless, to Yoga Masters! It is literally beyond our imagination how beneficial the work that Paige Elenson is doing in Nairobi and beyond. I hope we can all support them as much as possible and get sponsors and raise some funds so that our trip will have a real positive impact!

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=148947428506800

Register NOW! There is no better way to go to Kenya than with me and my team and we will be doing yoga and traveling with a personal chef who will be catering to our vegetarian inclinations!

Message me for questions and to Register! Fredb@miamiyoga.com or 305 606 2169

Yoga Retreat Safari in Kenya with Fred Busch

2011-08-01T08:10:00.001-07:00

Deposits are coming in now! Join the small group going to spend New Years in Africa for the Kenya Yoga Safari with me and my incredibly close Kenyan friends.

We will be guided and spending time with Maraka, Mboya, and Kwame, friends who have been like brothers to me for over 18 years.

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=148947428506800

Register NOW! There is no better way to go to Kenya than with me and my team and we will be doing yoga and traveling with a personal chef who will be catering to our vegetarian inclinations!

Message me for questions and to Register! 305 606 2169

Hot Yoga Miami - Brickell Hot Yoga

2011-07-31T21:14:00.001-07:00

Had such an amazing class this morning! So many friends together and the class was so packed!

Brickell Hot Yoga in Miami offers Hot Power Yoga in the style of Fred Busch Power Yoga. Come and do HOT Yoga in Brickell with the best teachers who teachers Vinyasa Style Hot Yoga.

Bikram Yoga in Miami is different from Brickell Hot Yoga because our style is Vinyasa based which means we practice poses like downward dog and arm strength and core poses that are not found in the Bikram method.

Fred Busch Power Yoga in Colombia

2011-07-31T20:48:00.001-07:00

I just returned from Bogota, Colombia! I really loved it and all the people i met there! What a great Yoga Community they have growing there and i am very grateful and excited to become part of it! Natural Yoga in Bogota is a really beautiful place and the energy of the studio is really positive and wonderful! Thanks Bogota! Fred Busch Power Yoga Teacher Training will come to Colombia early 2012 and you can email me through facebook or my partner for South American Programs - Alex at alex@limayoga.com

Hot Yoga Miami - Brickell Hot Yoga - Yoga Tutorials

2011-07-25T04:49:00.000-07:00

Here are some new Yoga and Pranayama Tutorials from our new Youtube Channel for Brickell Hot Yoga, the Hot Yoga Studio in Miami that offers Hot Vinyasa Yoga! Hope you enjoy these!

Alternate Nostril Breathing

Spinal Twist

Yoga Videos on my You Tube Channel

2011-07-25T04:45:00.000-07:00

There are many yoga videos found on Youtube that can be helpful in your yoga practice, and also many lectures of my teacher training programs that can be helpful for your daily life.

Fred Busch Yoga Channel

Cancer Prevention

2011-07-19T06:39:00.000-07:00

This is common sense and of course the agencies are figuring out the dangers late. But better late than never i guess. The category of 'possibly carcinogenic' is as close as they may get so we better accept that for being stronger than it appears. Cell phone radiation, pickled foods, and formaldehyde are certainly dangerous and to be avoided. Please use speaker phones on your cell phones to keep the transmitting element far away from your inner ear cavity.

The article below quotes someone as saying something like, "if cell phones cause cancer than it is doing so in a way we don't understand..." ... we it is happening so clearly we don't understand. There has been an epidemic of brain tumors in the last 15 years... do the research... either way... just use a speaker phone ... because why not???

NY TIMES REPORTS: THREE recent events highlight the extraordinary task that lies ahead for cancer prevention.

Health Guide: Cancer

First: in late May, a World Health Organization panel added cellphones to a list of things that are “possibly carcinogenic” — a category that also includes pickles and coffee.

Second: in mid-June, the National Toxicology Program, countering years of lobbying by certain industries, finally classified formaldehyde (used in plywood manufacturing and embalming) as a carcinogen.

And third: in late June, the Food and Drug Administration issued newer and moregraphic warning labels for cigarette packages. These include deliberately disturbing images of a patient with mouth cancer and of a man with tobacco smoke coming out of a tracheotomy stoma.

What connects these events? Together, they serve to remind us of three of the most potent challenges that cancer-control agencies face today. Indeed, it is essential to recognize these events as representing a progression: each corresponds to a crucial stage in the process of patrolling the borderlands of cancer. Effective cancer control depends on successful action at each of these complex stages.

The first challenge is scientific. It concerns the complexity of identifying new carcinogens, and the need for consistent standards for doing so. Take the purported link between cellphone radiation and brain cancer. This link is based largely on the so-called Interphone study. In Interphone, men and women with a variant of brain cancer (called glioma) were asked to recall their level of exposure to cellphone radiation. The results, at first glance, were provocative. Men and women who recalled moderate phone use seemed to have decreased rates of brain cancer compared to those who rarely used cellphones. In contrast, men and women with the highest usage seemed to have an increased rate of brain cancer.

But pivotal uncertainties remain. Trials like Interphone depend on the ability of subjects to recall their prior exposures. Such recollections can be surprisingly inconsistent. Indeed, when some subjects’ actual phone use was logged, there were broad discrepancies between actual and reported usage.

There are other difficulties. Despite a drastic increase in cellphone usage over the past decades, there has been no significant change in glioma cancer rates across the nation. Perhaps it is too early to judge, but the enormous increase in phone usage should have caused at least a minor blip in glioma rates over 20 years — but no such increase is apparent.

And finally, the kind of radiation emitted by cellphones — unlike the radiation emitted by X-rays or nuclear bombs — cannot directly damage DNA. X-rays and nuclear radiation possess the energy required to alter genes and thereby cause cancer. But the frequency of cellphone radiation is more than a million-fold lower. If cellphone radiation is causing cancer, it is doing so through a mechanism that defies our current understanding of carcinogenesis.

Brain cancer is a devastating illness, and it’s worth being cautious, but the current data supporting the link between phone radiation and glioma are weak. The cellphone case is a reminder of how difficult it is to identify a new carcinogen — and how important it therefore is to have standards to make such classifications possible.

Discrepancies in standards for classifying carcinogens have led to confusion and turmoil in the public realm. In contrast to the World Health Organization, many agencies, including the National Cancer Institute, remain skeptical about the link between phone radiation and cancer, and are awaiting more definitive studies to clarify the issue. In part, the problem is semantic: the W.H.O.’s definition of “possibly carcinogenic” is much looser; coffee and pickles are included, even though the evidence for their carcinogenicity remains weak. But the split between the W.H.O. and other agencies on cellphones — emblematic of the split within the scientific community — has had the unfortunate effect of confounding the public, which now does not know which faction to believe.

The second challenge facing cancer control agencies is political. The formaldehyde case illustrates this. Unlike phone radiation, formaldehyde has a well-established mechanism to cause cancer: it is a strikingly reactive chemical that can directly attack DNA. Experiments performed in the 1970s demonstrated that the chemical causes cancer in mice and rats. Following this data, sophisticated trials showed that men and women exposed to formaldehyde — morticians, for instance — had higher rates of leukemia than unexposed people.

But some of these studies were performed three decades ago. Why have 30 years elapsed between them and the National Toxicology Program announcement? In part, because of active lobbying by various industries, in particular, plywood manufacturers, who have tried to thwart this classification.

Identifying a carcinogen, in short, isn’t sufficient. Beyond the science — which, as the cellphone example shows, can be hard enough — cancer-control agencies need to bolster political support, and neutralize lobbying interests, before a culprit carcinogen can be revealed to the public.

The third challenge for the cancer community is social. The F.D.A.’s new labels on cigarette packages are a case in point. The human trials that established that tobacco smoke is a carcinogen were initially performed in the mid-1950s (some even earlier). The tobacco industry mounted an aggressive campaign to discredit the data, and continued marketing tobacco to the public. The landmark Surgeon General’s Report on smoking and cancer was released in 1964. And it took yet another decade of innovative strategies, including powerful antitobacco advertisements and tort cases against tobacco companies, to alter the trajectory of smoking behavior in America.

But young men and women in some parts of the nation are smoking again: consumption in certain regions has been rising, and cancer rates will rise concomitantly. Evidently, identifying a carcinogen or advertising the risk to the public is not enough: cancer-control agencies need to invent and reinvent strategies continuously. Old warning labels generate habitual responses, so new, more disturbing labels are needed to invigorate attention.

Patrolling the world for real carcinogens, in short, is a complex task. Scientific challenges morph into political challenges that lead to social challenges. If reducing the incidence of cancer is a national goal — as it surely must be — then it is essential to recognize the many-dimensional nature of countering carcinogens.

Siddhartha Mukherjee is an assistant professor of medicine at Columbia University and the author of “The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer.

Obesity in Kids considered to be Child Abuse by State

2011-07-14T20:27:00.000-07:00

I was reading the Miami Herald three days ago and it discussed the possibility of the State of Florida taking away custody of children who's parents let them get obese.

While i do not agree the state has such a right, i do agree with the premise that allowing a child to become obese and get diabetes essentially ruins his chances of living a wonderful and peaceful life. Obesity in Children is essentially a form of child abuse.

So what is needed is some intelligence in action. No more sugary drinks, no more fried foods, no more meat, and more fruits, more exercise, more reading. We need to all realize that a 5 year old child has no right to tell an adult what they should be eating. A 5 year old kid just does not know enough to make the correct decisions, and may simply always ask for Coca cola instead of fresh juice because the option is there. But the juice would be both better tasting and much healthier.

If anyone wants to create a scientific study on weight loss in kids with different diets i can assist in the design of such a study and it is needed. The solution to childhood obesity is literally obvious. Now let us raise awareness and start some actions.

Erectile Dysfunction is mostly caused by poor diet and no exercise

2011-07-09T21:26:00.000-07:00

Just in case anyone is interested, the most significant reasons why the organs are not functioning perfectly is related to blood flow. Poor food equals poor stagnant blood which does not lend itself to moving where it is required. I read a book called 'Super Potency at Any Age' and it describes how virility and vitality are related and accomplished through eating mostly raw and totally vegeterian. And to exercise daily! This simple formula should work for the majority of cases of E.D.

Do yoga and eat well! and watch the results will come quick is my guess!

Florida's obese are part of a growing nation - Miami Herald Today

2011-07-08T10:11:00.000-07:00

Obesity in Florida has increased 80% between 1995 and 2110, according to the Miami Herald today.

You know it is really amazing now nobody in charge of anything has any interest in solving this situation of obesity of kids and diabetes and all the sadness and grief and early death.

it really is amazing that nobody wants to simply do some real world experiments with obesity and different diets and exercise programs over a series of 2 years. The real issue is that few people are actually interested in health, only numbers of weight.... that is true on both sides of the story. Those who want to lose weight are obsessed with weight loss not health, those that want to gain weight and muscle mass are obsesed with that goal of looking like the guy in the magazine and don't care about health.

We must first distinguish health as our intention. Internal, External, Mental, Emotional Health and Wellbeing is my only intention in discussing this stuff. The herd is going off the cliff i read different articles every day and if anyone pieces it all together it reveals an unprecedented epidemic of health problems that almost everyone seems to be facing. the prescription medication trends and the obesity and diabetes and cancer rates, and the lack of exercise and general sedentary lifestyle is epidemic. the herd is going off the cliff. we dont have to follow is all i suggest... not to live forever, which is impossible, but to live higher quality of life in the present!

One person at a time we can all just make small changes like eat less potato chips and drink less soda and fried foods and meat... just a bit less... whatever small steps you initially take will create your momentem for the great leap that will land you across the other side of the divide. You can't cross a cross a chasm is two small jumps... it must be one giant leap! so have fun.... iuf you have questions about food just email me... fredb@miamiyoga.com

Connected Warriors - Free Yoga for Veterans and Families

2011-07-02T10:18:00.000-07:00

We had a great workshop last night for the Connected Warriors group of amazing volunteers and prospective teachers! We all learned about teaching yoga to veterans and Judy from Yoga South led everybody through a nice sample class! It goes without saying that this may be the most worthy project any of us have ever been involved in. We take so many things for granted in our lives and the main reason why we can grow up and continue to live in a world of safety and security is because these guys have been willing to risk their lives if commanded to do so. And many have come back to a government that offers very little support and a populace that is not overly embracing. So now the time has come when we can all get together and take care of our fellow brothers in uniform and their families!

Last night was awesome. We got our nucleus of organized and capable people from Connected Warriors and we have David Witenstein who did our teacher training and is a Vietnam Veteran to spearhead our outreach to the veterans community!

If you want to support Connected Warriors by being a 1 Year Committed teacher or by assisting in fund raising or donations please contact fredb@miamiyoga.com and fred will direct you to the right person. This is a 100% Volunteer Organization which is 'Serving those who have Served'.

www.theconnectedwarriors.com
fred

Yoga Alliance Teacher Training 500

2011-06-28T19:52:00.000-07:00

Allaine Stricklen Teaching in Miami at Brickell Hot Yoga

Allaine Stricklen and Fred Busch are Co-Faculty

Yoga Alliance Teacher Training 500 Hour

Receive the best teaching from two of Miami's

most senior internationally acclaimed Yoga Masters

Fred Busch Power Yoga Teacher Trainings with Allaine Stricklen in Miami! Yoga Alliance 200 and 500 Hour Certifications

Diabetes Rate Doubles Worldwide

2011-06-27T19:41:00.000-07:00

The Rate of Diabetes has doubled over the past 25 years. It is an epidemic and shows no sign or abating. Actually the opposite, it seems like it is spreading to ever younger children who become obese and ineffective in life before the age of 10.

We have the answers to cure diabetes and stop the epidemic. We must eat less refined sugar, refined flour, refined rice, less sodas, less fried foods, less empty calories. We need to eat more green foods, more fruits, more simple vegetarian foods.

We should immediately tax all sugar foods like we do for cigarettes simply to factor in the impact that diabetes related health care costs have on the overall health care budget. We can solve this one! It is simple! Tax sugar and educate people and make it harder for companies to poison people with junk foods... especially children.

BBC REPORTS Today:

The number of adults with diabetes in the world has more than doubled since 1980, a study in the Lancet says.

Researchers from Imperial College London and Harvard University in the US analysed data from 2.7m people across the world, using statistical techniques to project a worldwide figure.

The total number of people with all forms of the disease - which can be fatal - has risen from 153m to 347m.

The authors called for better detection and treatment to combat the rise.

Its authors said 70% of the rise was down to people living longer.

The rise has been most pronounced in the Pacific Islands. In the Marshall Islands a third of all women have the condition.

Majid Ezzati, of Imperial College London, said: "Diabetes is becoming more common almost everywhere in the world.

"Unless we develop better programmes for detecting people with elevated blood sugar and helping them to control their weight, diabetes will continue to impose a major burden on health systems around the world."

Yoga for Veterans in Miami and South Florida

2011-06-22T17:03:00.000-07:00

Attention Yoga Teachers:
We will be having a FREE workshop shortly at Brickell Hot Yoga to train teachers how to teach Yoga to VETERANS who have returned from duty in Iraq and Afganistan. Studios that want to participate can email me and i will put you in touch with the director of the fledgling organization... David Frankel is his name!

I will announce the time and date of the workshop and then this will be a springboard for the program beginning at Brickell Studio as well as sending teachers to the V.A.

this is all volunteer...pure karma yoga... and these guys deserve to have some peace and meditation, some yoga, in their lives. they have risked their life and many are very injured and traumatized... so if you have a drive to help Veterans and their families by teaching them yoga... email me to fredb@miamiyoga.com

i am the number one culprit of someone who lives a life without thinking about these guys out there in war...this is one way we can all step up and do our share to help these men and women reintegrate and relax a bit

the organization that i am supporting is called CONNECTED WARRIORS

email me to fredb@miamiyoga.com if you want to get on my list of possible teachers for this

Warnings coming to cigarette packs finally!

2011-06-22T16:54:00.000-07:00

Finally the USA is catching up with Europe on the labelling of cigarettes boxes!

Next should be similar warnings on sugar!

U.S. Releases Graphic Images to Deter Smokers

By DUFF WILSON

Nine images — one of a corpse and another of a man with a tracheotomy opening in his neck — are to appear on cigarette packages next year.

Why do we breathe deep in Yoga?

2011-06-21T17:20:00.000-07:00

The reason why we breathe deep in yoga is not because it is correct. The reason we breathe with awareness and deeply is because when our attention is yoked to the breath, the mind can begin to still. We are not interested in a still mind because it is the right technique, but rather because when the mind is still it is inherently blissful.

It is what Patanjali says, Yogas Citta Vrtti Nirodah - Yoga is found in the present moment when the fluctuations of the mind (thinking mind activity) have been suspended.

Allaine Stricklen's Teacher Training at Brickell HOT Yoga

2011-06-20T17:51:00.000-07:00

It is such a pleasure and honor to be co-teaching the Power Yoga Teacher Training with Allaine Stricklen here in Miami. Everyone in Miami knows that Allaine is the senior most teacher and her mastery of yoga is being exuded at all times! These few pics were taken during Allaine's most recent training hours as part of the 200 and 500 Yoga Alliance Teacher Training Certifications offered with Fred Busch at Brickell Hot Yoga in Miami, Florida.

Power Yoga Europe Teacher Training with Fred Busch in Malta

2011-06-16T08:34:00.000-07:00

I will be conducting the first ever Power Yoga Teacher Training in Malta on August 6th, 2011!
I am very excited to be hosted by Jungle Spirit Malta and this is a great chance for students from Europe to experience the Teacher Training Program that has been instrumental in changing people's lives on many levels.

Yoga Instructor Course - Fred Busch Power Yoga Europe Teacher Training in Malta

for info contact fredb@miamiyoga.com

Yoga Teacher Training Instructor Course - Miami - Starting for Summer

2011-06-16T08:05:00.001-07:00

The next dates for the Fred Busch Power Yoga and Allaine Stricklen Gentle Therapeutics Yoga Combined Teacher Training Instructor Course are JULY 9th and SEPTEMBER 10th, 2011 and January 14th, 2012.

Yoga Alliance 200 and 500 Hour Level Accreditation in Miami, Florida with Fred Busch and Allaine Stricklen

www.fredbusch.com
www.allainestricklen.com
www.brickellyoga.com
for info email fredb@miamiyoga.com

Some of the topic covered include:

Sanskrit
An unique and detailed introduction to sanskrit, including the sacred sanskrit alphabet

Yoga Philosophy
1. Raja Yoga (The Royal Path):
* Patanjali's Yoga Sutras and Eight Limb Path.

2. Karma Yoga (Selfless Service)
* Philosophy and Practice.

3. Bhakti Yoga (Devotional Love)
* Chanting, Dieties, Gurus, and the Hindu Scriptures and Gods.

4. Jnana Yoga (Wisdom and Knowledge)
*Advaita Vedanta, the philosophy of non-dualsim.

Asana Alignment and Posture Clinic Breakdown

Learn the do's and dont's, variations, sequencing fundamentals, verbal tips, use of props, order of instruction, body diagnostics, and visual recognition of problems for the following categories:
- Sun Salutations
- Standing Poses
- Seated Poses
- Back Bends
- Inversions
- Arm Balances
- Relaxation

Teaching Methodology and Critique:
-YOU will be able to teach:
- Vinyasa Flow sequences
- Power Yoga
- Healing sequences
- Easy does it yoga
- Special needs yoga for various populations
- Private Lessons
- Corporate Yoga
- Pranayama
- Meditation

Yoga Assists and Adjustments

To include light touch assisting, grounding, intention in touch, partner yoga, aroma therapy, and yoga massage.

The Yoga Diet
Study with author and renown food expert Fred Busch. Learn the secrets about food that become the keys to Yoga and spiritual growth.

Community Building
Join a unique community that will support you physically, socially and spiritually.

The Business of Teaching Yoga
You will learn how to run a yoga studio, organize a weekly class schedule, find work in spas, condos, and gyms, cultivate private clients, create your own niche, insurance, resume building, references, and how much to charge.

Overview of Hatha Yoga

(Asana Styles) in the Western World Today. We will compare and contrast todays hatha yoga culture by analyzing the Ashtanga, Anusara, Iyengar, Kundalini, Bikram, Vinyasa, Power, Sivananda, Kripalu, Jivamukti, Restorative, and Yin styles of hatha yoga.

Yogic Physiology
Study the metaphysical principles of yoga including the chakras, the nadis (esoteric nerve channels), the aura and subtle bodies, bio-energetics and vibration, and ayurveda (the doshas.)

Physical Anatomy
10 hours of instruction on classic bodily systems, anatomical terms, bio-mechanics, and contra-indications, all with specific references to asana practice

I'm Teaching Sundays 10:30am for next 6 Sundays

2011-06-16T07:59:00.000-07:00

Hey Everybody! I will teaching at my studio Brickell Hot Yoga for the next 6 Sundays at 10:30am!
Hope to see you there!

to get on my list to receive text messages about other public classes as they come up please email me your phone number to fredb@miamiyoga.com

fred

USDA Finally Repeals the Food Pyramid

2011-06-09T10:37:00.000-07:00

NY Times Reports that USDA has repealed and replaced the 'Food Pyramid' guideline to what constitutes a healthy meal. It is good that it has been replaced by something slightly better and easier to understand. Now it is represented as a plate of food with the size proportions visually scaled to priority. The good thing is that fruits and vegetables are seen as a foundation and more than 50%.

Obesity and eating habits are obviously directly linked and the obesity epidemic in the USA show no sign of abating. We must all realize that so many problems can all get solved if you relinquish our dependence on animal foods. Not only will we become a healthier and happier species overall, we also can solve deforestation, global warming, and many other environmental threats that our habits have created.

Remember that the single most important thing you can do to stop global warming or slow it, is to become a vegan. It is that simple. Healthy Person, Healthy Planet is how this thing works i believe.

USDA to reshape how we see dietary nutrition

The decades-old food pyramid is on the way out. It is expected to be replaced with a plate-shaped icon that experts say better depicts the balance of food groups recommended in a healthful diet.

Yoga Teacher Training Students Practicing Downward Dog Adjustments

2011-05-14T22:53:00.000-07:00

i love teaching students the best and safest way to deliver adjustments in class.

this student ... Andrea... is in Lima Peru at the Lima Yoga Studio.
Fred Busch Power Yoga in South America is in Lima, Guayaquil and soon Bogota

Massage Therapy for Yoga Teachers with Fred Busch

2011-05-14T22:43:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite things to teach students in the Yoga Teacher Trainings is how to use massage skills in Yoga. Yoga teachers that understand how the quality of touch can be improved end up being better teachers. Quality of touch plays such a big role in connecting to our students.

This is in Lima Yoga for the Fred Busch Power Yoga Instructor Course in South America

Clip from Fred Busch Famous Food Talk

2011-05-13T22:15:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6hH7xgeMhw

Power Yoga Teacher Training Lima

2011-05-13T22:12:00.000-07:00

This group here in Lima is amazing. What a blessing!

We are ready for Vegan/Vegetarian Star Chef on Food Network!

2011-05-08T20:08:00.000-07:00

The time has come! In my little opinion, the time is way overdue to discover a chef for Food Network who teaches people how to cook delicious vegetarian and vegan foods. The country is ready for a celebrity chef who does not ignore the obvious health issues that stem from eating so much butter and meat foods.

Food Network should realize that people are changing and there is a thirst for easy to implement info on how to live a smarter lifestyle and how simple it is to cook incredible vegetarian foods.

The Celebrity Chef i hope to see one day soon will revolutionize the image of eating less animal foods and put it in line with the pop culture of Food Networks masses.

Somebody make a demo! send it to them!

Arrived in Peru for Lima Yoga Teacher Training!

2011-05-08T19:58:00.000-07:00

Just arrived last night into Lima, Peru for the 2011 Fred Busch Power Yoga Teacher Training.
Today i gave a small talk open to the public on 'What is Yoga' and then taught a sold out class.

This year we have at least 18 students for the Training in Lima and i am so looking forward to meeting everyone tomorrow and getting started!

The Teacher Training Program in South America is very strong and Lima Yoga has three locations already!

blessings

fb

Solar Panels on Roads

2011-04-29T16:40:00.001-07:00

I just saw on CNN last night a very smart thing! Man had invented an asphalt surface for roads which was embedded with solar panels and led lights. This road surface could collect enough energy to power the cities of the country! It is a very good idea. Let us raise awareness about this solution to those who have vision for good solutions to big challenges.

Summer 4 Week Teacher Training Programs for Power Yoga Instructor Course and Immersion

2011-04-29T16:22:00.000-07:00

All Summer we are offering the highly effective 4 Week Intensive Teacher Training which is a life transforming opportunity. Pick a Month this summer and make it the best decision you have ever made. Consistently we are told that students thought the program was going to be good and useful, but are blown away by the depth and quality of the experience and that it is more than they ever could have imagined. This 4 week intensive training in Yoga and Mediation is not just for future yoga teachers, but is designed to be transformational for all who wish to attend.

June 11- Miami with Fred Busch and Allaine Stricklen - 200 and 500 Hour Yoga Alliance

July 9th -Miami with Fred Busch - 200 Hour and 500 Hour Yoga Alliance

August 6th- Malta with Fred Busch - 200 Hour Yoga Alliance

September 9th - Miami with Fred Busch - 200 Hour Yoga Alliance

Tuition - $2550 - 200 Hours USA Progams (European Trainings different tuition)

for questions email fredb@miamiyoga.com

Environmental laws being attacked with unseen fury, let us fight in support of them with even more furious resolve!

2011-04-29T16:13:00.000-07:00

As i read the papers over the last weeks i have observed a very strong trend in both US and European Governments to begin to scrap or just neuter almost every environmental protection law on the books.

Laws that have been working to maintain drinking water quality, air quality, river and forest land integrity are being attacked in the name of not wanting to put undo stress on businesses in this time of economic malaise. How short sighted can we be?

We are willing to allow our leaders to discuss the dismantling of over 30 years of environmental protections? I hope we make these Republican politicians pay a price with their jobs for attacking the planet and its ability to clean itself from the mess we make.

Our natural lands and quality of air and water need to be protected even more today, not less. Please lets keep the pressure up to make sure that the budget cuts don't undercut the most important things, protecting the integrity and cleanliness and longevity of our natural forests and parks.

The South Beach Detox™ You can ORDER NOW!

2011-03-25T04:45:00.000-07:00

The South Beach Detox™ is now READY to be Delivered to your house. Order Now. www.thesouthbeachdetox.com The Program formerly cost $495 but now that we developed more options and the entire 4 day program is less than $150... Take my word for it, it may be the best money you ever spend on yourself and will certainly be the best investment you have made in your health in a long time.

India Travel Adventures

2011-03-25T04:05:00.000-07:00

Manali - Kasol - Manikaram - Manali

The more time i spend here in this Himalayan mountain region, the more i am impressed by the spiritual quality of the air and overall energy of height. The Old Town of Manali where we have been based is just as picturesque as can be, sitting on a strong river flowing with the snow melt of the nearby snow-capped peaks that can be seen in all directions. The meditations here are very powerful and initiative in their ability to draw one into the center and maintain stillness of mind. It almost comes naturally around here to fall into deep meditation when sitting or hiking in nature.

We just spent the day and night in another small mountain village named Kasol, and stayed in a place that was on the river directly. It is very beautiful there. When i practiced yoga this am on the river i noticed not far away a part of the river that was steaming. I figured it must be something with hot water mixing into the river. So Elizabeth and i hiked over there and saw people bathing and doing laundry because it was indeed a hot spring pouring into the freezing river. Steam and sulfur smelling everywhere and trees and river pounding and mountains in the backdrop. As i sat in meditation there i could not help but realize the mystical nature of earth and life. It just was so clear with the steam and sunlight and water glistening off there powerful flow of water and the wind blowing… just mystical and blissful. I felt like i could stay there for a very long time just feeling the steam on my face and enjoying the riverside.

After breakfast (classical indian breakfast - vegetable stuffed chapatis) we went to the nearby ancient village of Manikaram… which is revered for its special significance by both Hindu and Sikh peoples. I have been learning as much as possible about the Sikhs since it was not a subject i had much exposure to before. I am very impressed about the Sikh philosophy and the realizations of Guru Nanak Dev the founder who lived in the 1500s and was able to find the common ground of all spiritual traditions and taught that spiritual life should be practically applied and that all non essential and ritualistic aspects can be let go. In Manikaram there was a vast Sikh temple that was sitting astride the hot springs and that there were public baths and a Hamam and water boiling out fissure in the earth. The water was coming to the surface so hot that people have been boiling rice there for centuries. That place also was shared with a sacred Shiva temple. I took my prostrations to Shiva and we were explained by a priest that God only made 1 Sun, 1 moon, 1 earth, so that we are all ONE. And he said people make borders and look at difference in skin colors, but God did not make any borders and inside all people are one.

After a crazy drive through the mountains where we were stopped by herds of goats and boulders in the road, we are back in beautiful Manali deciding where to go next. Maybe Dharamshala, maybe Rishikesh… time to decide!

Taj Mahal at Yoga Retreat

2011-03-20T01:40:00.000-07:00

Read the Blog about the Fred Busch India Retreat 2011

2011-03-20T01:33:00.000-07:00

There are few words that can express the amazing time we all had together during the first annual Fred Busch India Retreat!

We learned and experienced and shared so much. There are many entries and some great pictures on the blog we created dedicated to share our experiences.

http://therupeeman.tumblr.com/

We are already scheduling the 2012 India Yoga Retreat to Rishikesh and Manali in the Himalayas.
Check it out! Our team, just like my team in Kenya for the upcoming New Years Retreat, is world class. We travel on the ground and with the people but with nice accommodations and really experience the countries we travel.

any questions you can email to fredb@miamiyoga.com

Health Insurance Broken Even For the Rich - It is Dysfunctional for so many reasons

2011-02-20T08:12:00.000-08:00

Not only is the health care system broken because nobody can afford it, it emphasizes use of pharmaceuticals, it is making nobody healthier, and it creates a lot of fear in people. It is also does not even work for the rich people. We should focus all of our energy on prevention like simple diets, exercise, and meditation to create healthy balanced people.

In China the Doctors only get pain when you don't see them! If you had to see the doctor then the doctor did not do his job~

Op-Ed Contributor

Money Won’t Buy You Health Insurance

By DONNA DUBINSKY

Redwood City, Calif.

THIS isn’t the story of a poor family with a mother who has a dreadful disease that bankrupts them, or with a child who has to go without vital medicines. Unlike many others, my family can afford medical care, with or without insurance.

Instead, this is a story about how broken the market for health insurance is, even for those who are healthy and who are willing and able to pay for it.

Most employees assume that if they lose their job and the health coverage that comes along with it, they’ll be able to purchase insurance somewhere. The members of Congress who want to repeal the provision of last year’s health insurance law that makes it easier for individuals to buy coverage must assume that uninsured people do not want to buy it, or are just too cheap or too poor to do so.

The truth is that individual health insurance is not easy to get.

I found this out the hard way. Six years ago, my company was acquired. Since my husband had retired a few years earlier, we found ourselves without an employer and thus without health insurance.

My husband, teenage daughter and I were all active and healthy, and I naïvely thought getting health insurance would be simple.

Why did we even need insurance? First, we wanted to know that, if we had a medical catastrophe, we would not exhaust our savings. Second, uninsured patients are billed more than the rates that insurers negotiate with doctors and hospitals, and we wanted to pay those lower rates. The difference is significant: my recent M.R.I. cost $1,300 at the “retail” rate, while the rate negotiated by the insurance company was $700.

An insurance broker helped me sort through the options. I settled on a high-deductible plan, and filled out the long application. I diligently listed the various minor complaints for which we had been seen over the years, knowing that these might turn up later and be a basis for revoking coverage if they were not disclosed.

Then the first letter arrived — denied. It never occurred to me that we would be denied! Yes, we had listed a bunch of minor ailments, but nothing serious. No cancer, no chronic diseases like asthma or diabetes, no hospital stays.

Why were we denied? What were these pre-existing conditions that put us into high-risk categories? For me, it was a corn on my toe for which my podiatrist had recommended an in-office procedure. My daughter was denied because she takes regular medication for a common teenage issue. My husband was denied because his ophthalmologist had identified a slow-growing cataract. Basically, if there is any possible procedure in your future, insurers will deny you.

The broker then proposed that the three of us make individual applications. Perhaps one or two of us might be accepted, rather than the family as a group.

As I filled out more applications, I discovered a critical error in my strategy. The first question was “Have you ever been denied health insurance”? Now my answer was yes, giving the new companies reason to be wary of my application. I learned too late that the best tactic is to apply simultaneously to as many companies as possible, so that you don’t have to admit to a denial.

I completed four applications for each of the three of us, using reams of paper. I learned to read the questions carefully. I mulled over the difference between a “condition” and “something for which you have sought treatment.” I was precise and succinct. I felt as if I was doing a deposition: Give the minimum true information, and not a word more. I was accepted by exactly one insurance company. So was my daughter, although at a 50 percent premium over the standard charge for a girl her age. My husband was also accepted by one insurer but was denied by the company that approved me.

Our premiums, which were reasonable at first, have increased substantially over the last six years; the average annual increase has been 20 percent. I now am paying premiums that are more than double what they were initially. And because these are high-deductible policies, we still are paying most of the medical bills ourselves.

The new health care reform legislation is not perfect. Nothing that complex could be. But I have no doubt that the system is broken and reform is absolutely essential. If we are not going to have universal coverage but are going to rely on employer plans, then we must offer individuals, self-employed people and small businesses a place to purchase insurance at a reasonable price.

If members of Congress feel so strongly about undoing this important legislation, perhaps we should stop providing them with health insurance. Let’s credit their pay for the amount that has been paid by the taxpayers, and let them try to buy health insurance in the individual market. My bet is that they all would be denied. Health insurance reform might suddenly not seem to them like such a bad idea.

Making Monkeys Obese So They Can Be Studied

2011-02-20T07:52:00.000-08:00

Why dont we imitate a monkeys lifestyle so we can learn to be in health all the time. Instead of forcing these poor research monkeys to life our lifestyle so they get debilitating diseases that we can then study. It is quite backwards. We are making monkeys obese so they get diabetes instead of learning the lessons that can be learned from nature where diabetes literally does not exist.

NY TIMES Reports:

Today’s Lab Rats of Obesity: Furry Couch Potatoes

By ANDREW POLLACK

Published: February 19, 2011

Leah Nash for The New York Times

Shiva weighs twice the norm. More Photos »

Multimedia

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Fat Monkeys

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Leah Nash for The New York Times

At 45 pounds, Shiva is twice his normal weight and carries much of it in his belly. He can eat all the pellets he wants and snack on peanut butter, but gets barely any exercise. More Photos »

Shiva belongs to a colony of monkeys who have been fattened up to help scientists study the twin human epidemics of obesity and diabetes. The overweight monkeys also test new drugs aimed at treating those conditions.

“We are trying to induce the couch-potato style,” said Kevin L. Grove, who directs the “obese resource” at the Oregon National Primate Research Center here. “We believe that mimics the health issues we face in the United States today.”

The corpulent primates serve as useful models, experts say, because they resemble humans much more than laboratory rats do, not only physiologically but in some of their feeding habits. They tend to eat when bored, even when they are not really hungry. And unlike human subjects who are notorious for fudging their daily calorie or carbohydrate counts, a caged monkey’s food intake is much easier for researchers to count and control.

“Nonhuman primates don’t lie to you,” said Dr. Grove, who is a neuroscientist. “We know exactly how much they are eating.”

To allow monitoring of their food intake, some of the obese monkeys are kept in individual cages for months or years, which also limits their exercise. That is in contrast to most of the monkeys here who live in group indoor/outdoor cages with swings and things to climb on.

While this research is not entirely new and has been the target of some animal rights’ group complaints, demand for the overweight primates is growing as part of the battle against the nation’s obesity epidemic, according to Dr. Grove and other researchers working with such monkeys in Florida, Texas and North Carolina, and also overseas.

Some tests have already produced tangible results. Rhythm Pharmaceuticals, a start-up company in Boston, tested its experimental diet drug on some of the Oregon monkeys. After eight weeks, the animals reduced their food intake 40 percent and lost 13 percent of their weight, without apparent heart problems.

“We could get a much better readout on chronic safety and efficacy early,” said Bart Henderson, the president of Rhythm, which now plans to move into human testing.

In another study, a group of academic researchers is using the monkeys to compare gastric bypass surgery with weight loss from forced dieting. One goal is to try to figure out the hormonal mechanisms by which the surgery can quickly resolve diabetes, so that drugs might one day be developed to have the same effect. To that end, the study will do what cannot be done with people — kill some of the monkeys to examine their brains and pancreases.

The primate center here, which is part of Oregon Health and Science University, has more than 4,000 monkeys, mostly rhesus macaques. About 150 of them are the rotund rhesuses. Some receive daily insulin shots to treat diabetes, and some have clogged arteries. One monkey died of a heart attack a few years ago at a fairly young age.

Shiva, a young adult, gained about 15 pounds in six months and weighs about 45 pounds, twice the normal weight for his age. Like other monkeys with a weight problem, he carries much of the excess in his belly, not his arms and legs.

The monkey’s daily diet consists of dried chow pellets, with about one-third of the calories coming from fat, similar to a typical American diet, Dr. Grove said, though the diet also contains adequate protein and nutrients.

They can eat as many pellets as they want. They also snack daily on a 300-calorie chunk of peanut butter, and are sometimes treated to popcorn or peanuts. Gummy bears were abandoned because they stuck to the monkeys’ teeth.

Villages Without Doctors - Useful for USA also!

2011-02-15T08:46:00.000-08:00

This is something that i could not agree with more. I often speak about the fact that for a great deal of simple issues Doctors are not required and that this is creating an financial catastraphe for everyone except the health care industry itself. Insurance rates for families are out of hand.

The idea that only doctors can do what they are doing is limited. Doctors are very smart humans that is why they persevered through medical school and excelled in all academics beforehand. But in many cases actually they are not even helping due to their tendency to prescribe medication for any symptom... even muscle pain or things that are basically mechanical. We seem to live in a pharmacentric society now where Doctors are the drug dealers and real healing is done by the lay people anyway...the yoga teachers...the reiki healers... the people at places like Hippocrates Institute which employ MD's that have seen the folly of their former ways.

Read CONFESSIONS OF A MEDICAL HERETIC by Mendehlson it is tremendous.

Below is a solution reported in the New York Times today!

By TINA ROSENBERG

For the next few weeks, I’ll be writing about an idea that can make people healthier while bringing down health care costs, both in poor countries and in the United States.

The strategy is to move beyond doctors — to take the work of health care and shift down from doctors and nurses to lay people, peers and family. In the United States and other wealthy countries, lay people can fill in the gaps in left by doctors’ care. In poor countries, people with no or little formal medical training are successfully substituting for doctors and nurses.

This is fortunate, as villagers in many developing countries rarely see doctors or nurses. Especially in English-speaking parts of Africa and south Asia, doctors and nurses are often poached by better pay and conditions offered by Canada, the United States, Britain and Australia. Half the doctors trained in Ethiopia or Zambia, for example, have emigrated. (And each doctor who goes from, say, Kenya to Britain represents a transfer of about $600,000 from a poor country to a wealthy one.)

Local women can have huge impact on the health and prosperity of their villages.

Even doctors who don’t leave the country tend to stay in cities, where they treat patients who can pay. The distribution of nurses is only slightly more equitable. Rural villages do not tempt them.

But are doctors and nurses necessary to improve rural health? Two very successful programs in desperately poor parts of India’s Maharashtra state say no. SEARCH (the Society for Education, Action and Research in Community Health), in the district of Gadchiroli, and the Comprehensive Rural Health Project, in the district of Jamkhed, both recruit ordinary women to take care of their villages’ health. They have had a huge impact on the health and prosperity of their villages.

The Jamkhed program works with India’s most downtrodden people. Its trainees are women, many of them members of the Untouchable caste, many illiterate. When I visited the program in 2008, I met Jamkhed health workers who are lepers and those who were married at the age of two and a half.

While Leelabai Amte is a higher-caste Maratha, not an Untouchable, she was totally illiterate when she became a village health worker — she has since learned to read and write. She was married at 10 and had her first son at 13. Today, however, she is a respected authority figure in her village of 6,000 people, Halgaon. Amte was 60 when I met her, a very thin woman with thick glasses and no front teeth.

Twice a day, at nine in the morning and six at night, she set off through the streets of Halgaon, carrying a blood pressure cuff and a baby scale in her black shoulder bag, along with a log book. She visited the newborns she had delivered, pregnant women, old people. Her first stop one morning in January was the home of a three-day-old baby boy. Amte watched the baby suckle and then tied him in a cloth sling and hooked it to her scale. He was three and a half kilos, nearly eight pounds — a remarkable gain over his three-kilo birth weight. She murmured approvingly. “Don’t put anything on the umbilical cord,” she said. “And keep the child in the sunlight in the morning.”

“Twenty years ago, mothers waited three days to breast-feed their babies,” she said – a superstition that deprived babies of valuable colostrum and reduced the mothers’ supply of milk. Today, Amte has banished this and dozens of other superstitions from Halgaon. When she started working in Halgaon in 1977, families had six or seven children. The children often had scabies and other skin diseases. They were unvaccinated and often sick. Night blindness due to Vitamin A deficiency was everywhere. Tuberculosis and leprosy were common, and their sufferers were ostracized. People attributed illness to curses from the gods.

The vast majority of sickness in rural areas could be prevented with clean water, waste-disposal systems and more diverse farming.

Today there is no more infant mortality, and TB and leprosy are gone. Mothers eat better — the average birth weight of a baby has gone from about four and a half pounds to six and a half. New mothers are taught how to feed and care for their babies. Children get regular immunizations. Now almost every mother knows how to treat diarrhea and fever.

At a busy corner in the center of town, Amte was in the middle of a crowd of about 20 men, talking about installing toilets in Halgaon’s houses. Village women in India do not speak out to men, but Amte does. In the street she saw the husband of one of her pregnant patients — a woman overdue for her prenatal visit to the program’s hospital. “Why is your wife not coming to the hospital?” she scolded him. “We’ll check everything, give her blood tests.” The man had the grace to look sheepish. “I’ve been busy with farming,” he told Amte. “Next month I’ll bring her.”

All of the Jamkhed women say that the most important thing they do is teach others. Amte has trained three village women to deliver babies. At one house she quizzed a high-school girl. “If a child has a fever, what do you do?” Amte asked.

“Cold compresses,” said the girl promptly.

“And diarrhea?”

“You give oral rehydration mixture.”

“Do they teach you about health in school?” asked Amte. “Do they tell you about safe drinking water and keeping yourself clean?”

“No,” the girl replied. “You are the one who talks about that.”

The Jamkhed program was founded in 1970 by Raj and Mabelle Arole. Mabelle (who died in 1997) and Raj were first and second in their class respectively at a prestigious Indian medical school. They shared not only medical talent, but a dissatisfaction with the kind of medicine they were being taught — curative medicine, the kind useful for wealthy countries.

They moved back to Jamkhed, near where Raj was born, a location they chose largely for its desolation. They decided that doctors were not the way to help rural villages. The vast majority of sickness in rural areas could be prevented with clean water, waste-disposal systems and more diverse farming. Villages need to end deadly superstitions about health. They need to end discrimination against women and Untouchables, and to learn about hand-washing, nutrition, breast-feeding and simple home remedies. Doctors do none of these things.

“Rural problems are simple,” Raj Arole told me. “We do not need experts. An array of women like village health workers is enough, properly trained and supported.” The very prestige and distance of doctors worked against them. The Aroles found that lack of education was an advantage for village health workers. They knew how their neighbors lived and thought.

The Aroles went to various villages and asked each to choose a woman to send to the program’s headquarters in Jamkhed, which is also the name of the district’s major city, to learn to be a health worker. Mabelle and the couple’s daughter, Shobha, now a doctor who runs the program, conducted the training.

Teaching the women health skills was the easy part. Illiteracy was not an overwhelming problem. The real problem was the women’s complete absence of confidence. Their entire lives had been lessons in keeping their heads down. They had to gain confidence from each other.

More From Fixes

Read previous contributions to this series.

Amte and many of the other active health workers gather at the Jamkhed campus every Tuesday. They discuss problems in their village and learn about new health subjects. New health workers go in groups of three or four to stay with more experienced peers in their village for a week. They watch their mentor as she greets her neighbors with assurance, works with local all-men farmers clubs, sees patients and teaches mothers about breastfeeding or purifying water.

Starting out, none of the women could imagine that their neighbors would ever listen to their advice. There was no magic in it. The answer turned out to be the expected factors: time, demonstrable success and support. There were months, sometimes years of frustration, tempered by the soothing words of more experienced health workers who had gone through the same thing. But eventually, mothers of sick children called the Jamkhed worker out of desperation, when going to the temple didn’t work. Their success in curing a child’s diarrhea or delivering a baby after a difficult labor was the turning point. After that, people started listening when they talked about clean water, breastfeeding and nutrition as well.

Indian statistics have long shown that Jamkhed villages are far healthier than their neighbors. A new study published in the Bulletin of the World Health Organization found that Jamkhed’s program has reduced child deaths by 30 percent but had no significant effect on neonatal deaths — those in the first month of life.

SEARCH, by contrast, focuses on more traditional medicine. Like Jamkhed, SEARCH was founded by a husband-and-wife team of Indian doctors who studied public health at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Abhay and Rani Bang. But there are differences. SEARCH is newer, founded in 1985. It requires its health workers to have more education —literacy at least, and some of the women have finished 10^th grade. SEARCH trains them to work with mothers in their homes to have healthy children. The health workers visit pregnant women repeatedly, attend births, teach mothers about how to keep their babies healthy and check in on the children often. They diagnose and treat illnesses, and even administer injectable antibiotics to treat blood infections.

The Bangs carry out numerous studies of their work. In 1999, they published an article in the medical journal Lancet, showing that their home-based care program reduced neonatal and infant mortality by 50 percent.

That caught the attention of the Connecticut-based humanitarian agency Save the Children. “Neonatal mortality was an important and neglected health issue,” said David Oot, associate vice president for health and nutrition at Save the Children. “But the deaths occur at home without exposure to the formal health system. So people thought there was little you could do.”

SEARCH proved there was a lot you could do. For the past 10 years, SEARCH has worked with Save the Children to study new ways community health workers can work with mothers, and teach these methods to others. On Saturday, I will look at what makes Jamkhed and SEARCH so successful when similar programs have failed elsewhere, and how their ideas are now reaching millions of people around the world.

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Power Yoga London Teacher Training Instructor Course

2011-02-05T19:39:00.001-08:00

March 5th-April 26th, 2011
Power Yoga Teacher Training London with Fred Busch - Yoga Alliance 200 Hour Certification and Intensive Study in Fulham SW6 London
6 Weekends followed by 2 Intensive Weeks
Flexible programs available
fredb@miamiyoga.com for questions or registration
www.poweryoga.co

Oil companies ruining our WATER

2011-02-05T19:33:00.000-08:00

Gas Drilling Technique Is Labeled Violation

By TOM ZELLER Jr.

Published: January 31, 2011

Oil and gas companies are polluting our drinking water in a major way. NY Times reported last week that:

Oil and gas service companies injected tens of millions of gallons of diesel fuel into onshore wells in more than a dozen states from 2005 to 2009, Congressional investigators have charged. Those injections appear to have violated the Safe Water Drinking Act, the investigators said in a letter to the Environmental Protection Agency on Monday.

Diesel fuel was used by drillers as part of a contentious process known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, which involves the high-pressure injection of a mixture of water, sand and chemical additives — including diesel fuel — into rock formations deep underground. The process, which has opened up vast new deposits of natural gas to drilling, creates and props open fissures in the rock to ease the release of oil and gas.

But concerns have been growing over the potential for fracking chemicals — particularly those found in diesel fuel — to contaminate underground sources of drinking water.

“We learned that no oil and gas service companies have sought — and no state and federal regulators have issued — permits for diesel fuel use in hydraulic fracturing,” said Representative Henry A. Waxman of California and two other Democratic members of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, in the letter. “This appears to be a violation of the Safe Drinking Water Act.”

Oil and gas companies acknowledged using diesel fuel in their fracking fluids, but they rejected the House Democrats’ assertion that it was illegal. They said that the E.P.A. had never properly developed rules and procedures to regulate the use of diesel in fracking, despite a clear grant of authority from Congress over the issue.

“Everyone understands that E.P.A. is at least interested in regulating fracking,” said Matt Armstrong, a lawyer with the Washington firm Bracewell & Giuliani, which represents several oil and gas companies. “Whether the E.P.A. has the chutzpah to try to impose retroactive liability for use of diesel in fracking, well, everyone is in a wait-and-see mode. I suspect it will have a significant fight on its hands if it tried it do that.”

Regardless of the legal outcome, the Waxman findings are certain to intensify an already contentious debate among legislators, natural gas companies and environmentalists over the safety of oil and gas development in general, and fracking in particular.

Fever's are not to afraid of! They are body acting intelligently!

2011-01-24T17:53:00.000-08:00

NY Times reports last week that while fevers are not fun and not easy to stay calm when your children have one... they are a sign of a strong immune system that is doing its job!

NY Times Reports:

Lifting a Veil of Fear to See a Few Benefits of Fever

As a pediatrician, I know fever is a signal that the immune system is working well. And as a parent, I know there is something primal and frightening about a feverish child in the night.

So those middle-of-the-night calls from worried parents, so frequent in every pediatric practice, can be less than straightforward. A recent paper in The Journal of the American Medical Association pointed out one reason, and a longstanding discussion about parental perceptions reminds us of the emotional context.

The JAMA study looked at over-the-counter medications for children, including those marketed for treating pain and fever: how they are labeled, and whether the droppers and cups and marked spoons in the packages properly reflect the doses recommended on the labels.

The article concluded that many medications are not labeled clearly, that some provide no dosing instrument, and that the instruments, if included, are not marked consistently. (A dosing chart might recommend 1.5 milliliters, but the dropper has no “1.5 ml” mark.)

“Basically, the main message of the paper is that the instructions on the boxes and bottles of over-the-counter medications are really confusing,” said the lead author, Dr. H. Shonna Yin of New York University Medical Center, who is a colleague of mine and an assistant professor of pediatrics.

Too small a dose of an antipyretic (fever medicine) may be ineffective; too much can be toxic. But the dose depends on the child’s weight, which of course changes over time, and on the concentration of the medicine, which depends on whether it is acetaminophen or ibuprofen, children’s liquid or infant drops.

Mediterranean diet helps stave off mental decline

2011-01-17T21:26:00.000-08:00

Aging: Mediterranean Diet as Brain Food

By NICHOLAS BAKALAR

Published: January 13, 2011

NY TIMES reports that a more Mediterranean diet helps stave off mental decline. Of Course any diet that is better than the standard american diet is going to improve mental function. The heavy use of Raw Olive Oil and generally vegetarian nature of this style of eating shows its benefits once again. As for the fish part, i don't agree that this is part of what makes the diet beneficial.

I myself eat a lot of Hummus and other Middle eastern Mediterranean fare! It is very easy to eat satisfying meals with the Olive oil and other delicious components.

The Mediterranean diet — heavy on vegetables, fish and olive oil, with moderate amounts of wine — may be associated with slower rates of mental decline in the elderly.

Some previous studies have suggested that the diet has beneficial effects for the brain, but the evidence has not been strong. A new report analyzed data from a continuing study of 3,790 Chicago residents 65 and older that began in 1993. The researchers tested the subjects’ mental acuity at three-year intervals, and tracked their degree of adherence to the Mediterranean diet on a 55-point scale.

High scores for adherence to the diet were associated with slower rates of cognitive decline, even after controlling for smoking, education, obesity, hypertension and other factors.

The lead author, Christine C. Tangney, an associate professor of nutrition at Rush Medical College in Chicago, said sticking to the diet made a large difference. Those in the top third for adherence, she said in a telephone interview, were cognitively the equivalent of two years younger than those in the bottom third.

Teacher Training Begins Saturday - India Almost Sold OUT

2011-01-03T15:01:00.000-08:00

This Saturday starts the Teacher Training at Brickell. You can still register!

I will be in Miami for about 6 Weeks and will accept appointments for: Private Yoga, Lower Back Pain, South Beach Detox, Meditation

The Food Talk will be open to the public and will take place on January 15th at 2pm

India Retreat is almost sold out.. i think there are 1 or 2 spots left so register now!

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Childhood: A Caffeine Buzz From Soft Drinks

2010-12-21T06:23:00.000-08:00

Caffeine is a toxic compound that stimulates the body due to the body's need to eliminate the toxin. The body makes the heart beat faster in order to try to eliminate the toxin through the organs of filtration faster. For children to be given caffeine or refined sugar is really unfortunate!

NY Times Reports:

A small study at an urban pediatric clinic suggests that children younger than 12 are routinely consuming so much caffeine that it could interfere with their sleep. The source, almost exclusively, is caffeinated soft drinks, like Coca-Cola.

About 75 percent of 228 children in the study (published online on Thursday in The Journal of Pediatrics) consumed caffeine. Children 5 to 7 swallowed an average of 52 milligrams a day, and those 8 to 12 averaged 109 milligrams — about the same amount as a cup of drip coffee.

Caffeine is a diuretic, and the study was designed to see whether the consumption was associated with bed-wetting. It was not, but sleep was another matter. Average sleep times for the caffeine drinkers were slightly less than the amount recommended for these ages by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The American Beverage Association disputed the study, citing a 2002 review finding that caffeine’s effects on children “seem to be modest and typically innocuous.”

“Caffeine is safe, even for children,” said Maureen Storey, the association’s senior vice president for science policy.

The new study’s authors acknowledged that it did not prove a link between caffeine and sleep problems. Still, the lead author, William J. Warzak, a professor of psychology at the University of Nebraska, says that avoiding it is a good idea. “But,” he added, “you’re not a terrible parent if a kid has a Coke away from home.”

Awareness: Of Medicines and Mismeasurements--- Pediatric Over the Counter Drugs ?

2010-12-18T06:24:00.000-08:00

It is amazing how something as important as labeling childrens medication can be and how it is ignored. Unclear instructions can be deadly as the article below explains. What is even more interesting is how many kids are being given drugs that they don't need at all. Just because a child gets a runny nose or sore throat does not mean they need over the counter drugs. A high temperature needs to be controlled but not a mild grade one. Childrens bodies are very vital and always working to restore equilibrium and usually more than capable of staying well if fed correctly and exercised. No reason at all to interfere with the processes by polluting the system of the little person with the extremely powerful chemicals known as 'over the counter' drugs.

Over the year that ended on Nov. 1, 2009, researchers examined the directions and measuring devices in 200 nonprescription pediatric liquid medicines — drugs for allergy, cough and cold, pain or gastrointestinal problems, and medicines in combination products.

Writing online on Nov. 30 in The Journal of the American Medical Association, the researchers report that 52 of the medicines had no measuring device in the package, and that 146 of the other 148 had inconsistencies between the dosing directions and the devices, including missing or superfluous markings, unfamiliar units of measurement (for example, drams or cubic centimeters), or undefined or nonstandard abbreviations.

In November 2009, the Food and Drug Administration published voluntary guidelines for the labeling of dosing directions and measuring devices for over-the-counter liquid medicines. “The plan is that we can expect to see changes by next winter,” said Dr. H. Shonna Yin, the lead author.

But Dr. Yin, an assistant professor of pediatrics at New York University, is not finished. “When we do the study again,” she said, “we’ll see if voluntary guidelines work, or if we need something stronger.” In the meantime, she said, parents should pay careful attention to both directions on packages and the labeling on measuring devices. “A tablespoon,” she warned, “is three times as large as a teaspoon.”

NY TIMES REPORTS:

Giving the correct dose of an over-the-counter pediatric medicine is critical, but the package labeling and dosing information can be virtually incomprehensible. And an overdose can be deadly.

Obesity Surgery May Become Option for Many More - A Fantastic Trend!

2010-12-12T10:16:00.000-08:00

Isn't this great? Weight Loss Surgery is going mainstream! There may be some cases where surgery is required but that is very unlikely. Once again instead of becoming interested in the root cause of obesity in our society and making a shift towards a healthier world, we are encouraging ignoring the cause and just focusing on the symptom of obesity. Health should be the priority, not some numeric number! So many people are compromising their health just to lose weight, when the most effective way to address obesity is the comprehensive approach that addresses exercise, food intake and awareness over negative thought patterns.

Weight-loss surgery, once a last resort for extremely overweight people, may soon become an option for those who are less heavy.

An advisory committee to the Food and Drug Administration will consider on Friday a request by Allergan, the pharmaceutical company, to significantly lower how obese someone must be to qualify for surgery using the company’s Lap-Band device, which restricts intake to the stomach.

On Wednesday, the F.D.A. acknowledged that a new study by the company showed that people in the proposed range of obesity who had the band experienced “statistically significant decreases in all measures of weight loss.”

If the agency approves the change, the number of Americans eligible for the Lap-Band operation could easily double, ensuring more sales for Allergan and probably more insurance coverage for such operations. But the proposed change, sought at a time when the obesity epidemic in the United States seems intractable, still leaves some people uneasy, in part because of side effects and failure rates. In addition, long-term weight reduction is hard to maintain.

“You’re talking about millions and millions of people who would meet these criteria,” said Dr. George Blackburn, associate director of the division of nutrition at Harvard Medical School. “Let’s make sure by the most rigorous research that this is safe and effective.”

A new generation of diet pills has failed to gain federal approval, limiting options for overweight Americans, and Allergan and other companies are betting that surgery will become more of a frontline option rather than a last resort.

Radiation Rules Differ for Humans and Pets - NY Times reports

2010-12-09T07:19:00.000-08:00

Whenever possible radiation is to be avoided. The effects are not well understood and variable amongst different people. There are other options usually. The Hippocrates Institute in Palm Beach, Fl is one of the premiere centers for curing cancer through fasting, green fluids, and rest.

WASHINGTON — One group receiving treatment for a thyroid disorder is given a radioactive drug that makes the patients a potential hazard to children or pregnant women for several days. Still, doctors usually send them home immediately after treatment.

Yet another group of thyroid patients given the same drug in much smaller doses must be quarantined for two to five days under government rules, until the radiation the patients emit is sharply reduced.

What is the difference? The first group is made up of human patients, and the second is made up of cats and dogs.

In October, Representative Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, complained to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that its policy on human thyroid patients was creating dilemmas for patients, some of whom are sent home immediately after radiation treatment to households with children or pregnant women.

Now, Mr. Markey is pointing out that the rules are much stricter for house pets, even though they usually get radiation doses 90 percent to 98 percent smaller than the ones given to humans. On Thursday, he plans to ask the commission to revisit the regulations.

“The public is more protected from a radioactive Fluffy than from a radioactive father who receives the very same treatment and is then just sent home,” said Mr. Markey, who is the chairman of a House subcommittee with jurisdiction over the nuclear commission.

“The N. R. C. needs to immediately change its nonsensical policy and act to protect public health instead of industry’s bottom line,” he said.

In an interview, a spokesman for the commission, David McIntyre, acknowledged the disparity in the regulations. Under the commission’s rules, radiation exposure to a person from a human patient is supposed to be limited to 500 millirems per treatment, while the exposure to humans from treated pets should be one-fifth that amount. (By comparison, the average American gets about 360 millirem a year from natural sources.)

But, Mr. McIntyre said, “The higher limit for humans is appropriate because of the benefits to the patient in being able to recover at home in the care and presence of loved ones, and because the risk of exposure to others can be managed by taking appropriate precautions.”

“The lower limit for animals is appropriate because it is more difficult to manage the exposure to humans,” he added.

Half of Europeans are overweight, a report shows

2010-12-08T20:00:00.000-08:00

Congratulations to Europe! They are finally catching up to epidemic status we have already reached with regards to obesity in the USA. Obesity is so devastating because it is fundamental in it's effects. Exercise more! Stop treating your body like it is a garbage disposal. Obesity is simple to tackle!

Over half of adults living in the European Union countries are now overweight or obese according to a report.

The rate of obesity has more than doubled over the past 20 years in most EU member states, international experts say.

The UK comes out worst, shortly followed by Ireland and Malta, where a quarter of the population is obese.

World experts meet this week to discuss how to reverse the "worrying trend".

The European Commission and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) who compiled the Health at a Glance Europe 2010 report believe the key to success is encouraging children to adopt healthy habits.

Currently, one in seven children in the EU is overweight or obese - and the figures are set to rise even further.

Extra Calcium and Vitamin maybe Harmful says NY TIMES

2010-12-02T09:28:00.000-08:00

The following Article for NY TIMES 11/30/10 says that the recent trend towards Vitamin D Supplementation and Calcium supplementation is totally unnecessary and actually could be a health risk.

Vitamins and minerals can only be utilized by the body when they come 'chelated' or placed within the context of a living cell. That is why all nutrition should be attained through whole foods. When vitamins, minerals and sugars are taken out of context of each other the way God designed it, they become insults to the body which is unable to read that language of separtation.

The very high levels of vitamin D that are often recommended by doctors and testing laboratories — and can be achieved only by taking supplements — are unnecessary and could be harmful, an expert committee says. It also concludes that calcium supplements are not needed.

The group said most people have adequate amounts of vitamin D in their blood supplied by their diets and natural sources like sunshine, the committee says in a report that is to be released on Tuesday.

“For most people, taking extra calcium and vitamin D supplements is not indicated,” said Dr. Clifford J. Rosen, a member of the panel and an osteoporosis expert at the Maine Medical Center Research Institute.

Dr. J. Christopher Gallagher, director of the bone metabolism unit at the Creighton University School of Medicine in Omaha, Neb., agreed, adding, “The onus is on the people who propose extra calcium and vitamin D to show it is safe before they push it on people.”

Over the past few years, the idea that nearly everyone needs extra calcium and vitamin D — especially vitamin D — has swept the nation.

With calcium, adolescent girls may be the only group that is getting too little, the panel found. Older women, on the other hand, may take too much, putting themselves at risk for kidney stones. And there is evidence that excess calcium can increase the risk of heart disease, the group wrote.

As for vitamin D, some prominent doctors have said that most people need supplements or they will be at increased risk for a wide variety of illnesses, including heart disease, cancer and autoimmune diseases.

And these days more and more people know their vitamin D levels because they are being tested for it as part of routine physical exams.

“The number of vitamin D tests has exploded,” said Dennis Black, a reviewer of the report who is a professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of California, San Francisco.

At the same time, vitamin D sales have soared, growing faster than those of any supplement, according to The Nutrition Business Journal. Sales rose 82 percent from 2008 to 2009, reaching $430 million. “Everyone was hoping vitamin D would be kind of a panacea,” Dr. Black said. The report, he added, might quell the craze.

“I think this will have an impact on a lot of primary care providers,” he said.

The 14-member expert committee was convened by the Institute of Medicine, an independent nonprofit scientific body, at the request of the United States and Canadian governments. It was asked to examine the available data — nearly 1,000 publications — to determine how much vitamin D and calcium people were getting, how much was needed for optimal health and how much was too much.

The two nutrients work together for bone health.

Bone health, though, is only one of the benefits that have been attributed to vitamin D, and there is not enough good evidence to support most other claims, the committee said.

91 Year Old Track and Field Star demonstrates Anti-Aging Value of Exercise

2010-11-26T06:02:00.000-08:00

I have been saying this for a long time and here you go! Check out this 91 year old athlete who started her career at age 77!

On the third floor of the Montreal Chest Institute, at McGill University, Olga Kotelko stood before a treadmill in the center of a stuffy room that was filling up with people who had come just for her. They were there to run physical tests, or to extract blood from her earlobe, or just to observe and take notes. Kotelko removed her glasses. She wore white New Balance sneakers and black running tights, and over her silver hair, a plastic crown that held in place a breathing tube.

Tanja Taivassalo, a 40-year-old muscle physiologist, adjusted the fit of Kotelko’s stretch-vest. It was wired with electrodes to measure changes in cardiac output — a gauge of the power of her heart. Taivassalo first met Kotelko at last year’s world outdoor masters track championships in Lahti, Finland, the pinnacle of the competitive season for older tracksters. Taivassalo went to watch her dad compete in the marathon. But she could hardly fail to notice the 91-year-old Canadian, bespandexed and elfin, who was knocking off world record after world record.

Masters competitions usually begin at 35 years, and include many in their 60s, 70s and 80s (and a few, like Kotelko, in their 90s, and one or two over 100). Of the thousands who descended on Lahti, hundreds were older than 75. And the one getting all the attention was Kotelko. She is considered one of the world’s greatest athletes, holding 23 world records, 17 in her current age category, 90 to 95.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/28/magazine/28athletes-t.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&hp

Hospitals- no progress in Patient safety! To be avoided when possible!

2010-11-25T06:03:00.000-08:00

The study, conducted from 2002 to 2007 in 10 North Carolina hospitals, found that harm to patients was common and that the number of incidents did not decrease over time. The most common problems were complications from procedures or drugs and hospital-acquired infections.

“It is unlikely that other regions of the country have fared better,” said Dr. Christopher P. Landrigan, the lead author of the study and an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School. The study is being published on Thursday in The New England Journal of Medicine.

It is one of the most rigorous efforts to collect data about patient safety since a landmark report in 1999 found that medical mistakes caused as many as 98,000 deaths and more than one million injuries a year in the United States. That report, by the Institute of Medicine, an independent group that advises the government on health matters, led to a national movement to reduce errors and make hospital stays less hazardous to patients’ health.

If you have not read the book yet titled "Confessions of a Medical Heretic" by Dr. Robert Mendehlson... i can not suggest it enough.

He explains that hospitals are like war zones in that they should avoided at all costs. NY Times reported yesterday:

Study Finds No Progress in Safety at Hospitals

Efforts to make hospitals safer for patients are falling short, researchers report in the first large study in a decade to analyze harm from medical care and to track it over time.

Among the preventable problems that Dr. Landrigan’s team identified were severe bleeding during an operation, serious breathing trouble caused by a procedure that was performed incorrectly, a fall that dislocated a patient’s hip and damaged a nerve, and vaginal cuts caused by a vacuum device used to help deliver a baby.

Dr. Landrigan’s team focused on North Carolina because its hospitals, compared with those in most states, have been more involved in programs to improve patient safety.

But instead of improvements, the researchers found a high rate of problems. About 18 percent of patients were harmed by medical care, some more than once, and 63.1 percent of the injuries were judged to be preventable. Most of the problems were temporary and treatable, but some were serious, and a few — 2.4 percent — caused or contributed to a patient’s death, the study found.

30 Day Intensive Yoga Teacher Training in Miami begins January 8th, 2011 and London March 5th, 2011

2010-11-19T17:43:00.000-08:00

Fred Busch Power Yoga 200 Hour Yoga Alliance Teacher Training begins in Miami on January 8th, 2011 and in London March 5th, 2011 in company with Wayne Leal and Sweaty Betty.

The Miami Training is Intensive 30 Days. London Teacher Training with Wayne Leal is over 2 months.

for questions and/or to register email fbusch911@gmail.com subject 'teacher training'

Curriculum is Below

Fred Busch Teacher Training
Workshops/ TT Module Presentations

Intro to Yoga and Yoga Philosophy
What is Yoga? What is Power Yoga? How do the different styles of Yoga relate to each other? What is the goal of Yoga? How does Meditation relate to Yoga? This workshop will begin to answer all of these questions and many more and we look into the historical background of Yoga and Tantra and then relate it to the present day movement of Yoga around the world.

5 Koshas (Sheaths)
The 5 Koshas are an energetic understanding of a person visualized as layers or more or less density of energy. The body itself being the least subtle layer, and subsequent layers of prana, mind, wisdom, bliss form concentric circles around the Center of Your Being... the Atman. This discussion of the Koshas will focus on understanding how this vision of human anatomy is useful in todays world.

Learning to Self Practice- Opening Sequence, Sun A, Sun B
In learning to Self Practice, which is the most valuable skill in Yoga, it is important to know some fundamental principles which will keep you confident and doubt free, which happen to be the only obstacles to a consistent Self-Practice. This workshop will break down the Fred Busch Power Yoga Opening Sequence and Sun Salutations so as to create complete understanding of the sequence, the alignment, the point of gaze, and the correct breathing and attitude. With this workshop you will be empowered to begin your Self-Practice on days you don’t make it to the studio.
Drsti, Pranayama, Meditation

The 4 Paths and the 8 Limbs (Ashtanga) of Yoga
There are 4 Paths of Yoga classically known in India. This workshop will discuss the 4 Paths and how they differ and how they are similar. Karma Yoga, Bhakti Yoga, Raja Yoga and Jnana Yoga are the 4 Paths of Yoga which will be discussed. From Raja Yoga comes the great Sage Patanjali, the greatest Yoga master of all time and the author of the Yoga Sutras. Inside the Yoga Sutras, between Books 2 and 3, is found the section on Ashtanga Yoga, the Eight Limb Path, and within it, Patanjali explains the scientific formula for enlightenment and bliss. This is a workshop dedicated to illuminating our intellects and preparing ourselves for Living Enlightenment.

Mastering Standing Poses in Self Practice
The standing poses in Power Yoga, Vinyasa Yoga, and other Hatha Yogas form the foundation for developing the strength and openness required to sit in meditation for long periods of time. The standing poses were developed much later in time and were created to build fitness, stability and good health. Their are many benefits to standing poses, however the benefits are even greater when the Asana is performed perfectly.
A good and aligned yoga pose creates powerful lines of energy in the body and the result is energetic flow that is both powerful and healing. This workshop will address the many alignment principle inherent in the standing poses of Power Yoga. We will discover here how many poses share the same alignment principles and learn to do visualize the ideal body and thus self correct yourself in Self-Practice.

Yoga Anatomy 1
Learn the bones, the joints, and the Muscles! This introduction to Physical Anatomy is well suited to beginners in the subject as we take it from the very beginning with Directional Terms and basic vocabulary. From there we learn the bones, types of joints, and the names and locations of the most important muscles in the body. We relate this info to Yoga by incorporating yoga poses that use the various muscles and feeling and seeing inside our own bodies for the pathway of the various muscle groups.

The Famous Fred Busch Food Talk
Fasten your seat belts and hold on tight, because this is often the most powerful presentation of information you will ever witness. In the Yoga Teacher Training version of the food talk, Fred will take no prisoners as he presents his understanding of the subject of Food. Welcoming all questions and all challenges, this workshop includes scientific discussions of the role of Vitamins, Minerals, Protein, Essential Fatty Acids, Enzymes, Probiotics, Immune System, Energy levels, Detox. Fred will discuss how easy it is to be an unhealthy vegetarian and will explain the principles to eating with more intelligence and more respect for biological design.

Yoga Sutras of Maharishi Patanjali
The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali are one of the most important of all Scriptures in the world. Written by Patanjali in a Sutra form, designed to be hidden out in the open, the Sutras are the accumulation of Yogic and Tantric wisdom that existed from the antiquities. Patanjali presented all of them in one single volume and in doing so did a service for Humanity that is divine. Each Yoga Sutra is ‘independently intelligent’ as Fred’s master explains, they each by themselves can deliver you from bondage into enlightenment, also known as Kaivalya, Nirvana, Bliss, Samadhi. In this workshop we will read all the Sutras with English translation and discuss many in full detail.

Fred Busch’s Healing Sequences for Power Yoga
Most injuries start small and get worse over time due to aggravation, something called not listening to your body. This is very common in Yoga because most teacher don’t understand how to let the body heal itself while still doing daily yoga. Most Yoga teachers suggest to either take a week off, or just keep going and push through it!
The fact is that both of those approaches don’t work which is why people don’t easily heal themselves and injuries can become chronic and spread and implicate other muscles. This is not the only option! The Fred Busch Healing Sequences offer a means to continue your daily yoga practice, get stronger in your core, and become the most advanced Yogi of them all, all while healing yourself of whatever injury has been gifted to you.

Arm Balances and Intermediate Poses
In order to learn arm balances from the beginning it is necessary to understand which muscles are really responsible for creating the lift of the seeming ability to defy gravity. This lift generally comes from the core muscles and so this workshop targets and identifies the preparation poses required to master before arm balancing becomes easy. We will then practice the actual arm balances in a specific and detailed way to assure everyone know exactly how to enter the poses over time.

Poses in this workshop will include: Forearm Stand, Handstand, Astavakrasana, Bhujapidasana, Peacock, Side Crow, Crow, Koundinyasana

Chakras Workshop
The chakras are energetic vortices in the body that have been seen by the mystics and can be perceived in the auric field. They are psycho-energetic centers that represent the potential of human consciousness and a map of the territory of human evolution.
This discussion of the chakras will cover the individual Chakras Color, Element, Sound, Emotion, Gland, and Poses. We will discuss how being stuck in the first three chakras has limited most people from seeing the true potential of human bliss which comes from moving into the Heart Center and awakening the THIRD EYE.

Inversions and Backbending
Ready to learn as much as you can about Headstand, Shoulderstand, and Backbends?
This is the workshop for you! We will start with a comprehensive safety discussion about Headstand and Shoulderstand with relation to the cervical spine and thoroughly cover the contra-indications for Inversions. Then we will take those who are ready to experience and realize which muscles groups are actually responsible for mastery of the inversions. We will practice and learn all the preparation poses and then get ready to MOVE OFF THE WALL, If you are ready, and the time has come for you, and your backbends are reasonable. We will learn about the 2 DIFFERENT HEADSTANDS and practice both of them and then discuss and learn the details for Shoulderstand.

We will then address Spine and Back Bends and we will discuss how many students do backbends that are not very effective. In this detailed workshop on the nature of Back bending and front body opening, we will cover the many variation of backbends and why different versions are more suitable for different student types. Making sure your yoga practice is always serving you most effectively.

Sanskrit Alphabet

The Sanskrit Alphabet is a divinely realized continuum of sound waves that are harmonic to your Chakra system and resonant to the sound waves of the cosmos.
The Sanskrit Alphabet is sacred and incredibly healing when pronounced correctly.
This workshop will cover the basics to pronunciation of the 51 Letters of the Sanskrit Script of Devanagari. You will learn how to read elementary Sanskrit words and how to pronounce the names and words in the many sacred Sanskrit Mantras. We will cover the 5 Mouth Positions of Sanskrit and vowels and consonant sounds as well as the Anasvara and Visarga grammatical components. Make your chanting precise and feel the energetic difference in the sound waves vibrating within and around you.

Massage for Yoga Teachers

Just a few very simple massage techniques can make the difference between a good yoga teacher and great one. This very popular workshop (everyone loves massage and wants to learn to massage better!) focuses on the most practical and satisfying massage moves that help a person feel less tense and more relaxed. Fred Busch massage training for Yoga teachers is available to anyone who wants to learn a better quality of touch. For Yoga teachers this is invaluable information which will without question improve the quality of your classes and the quality of care for your students.

Chanting Sanskrit Mantras

This is a workshop designed to highlight the healing and illuminating effects of chanting Mantras in Sanskrit. Sanskrit sounds are scientific and specific frequencies that are associated with your Chakras and help to balance and energize them. We will cover several of the most Sacred Mantras on Earth: Gayatri, Maha Mritunjaya, Sri Ram Jay Ram, and several others as we also discuss the universal nature of Spiritual Enlightenment and bliss. We will focus on correct sanskrit pronunciation using the 5 mouth positions and the power of visualization and intention.

Pranayama, Meditation, Mala Beads

The system of Yoga and enlightenment as expressed in the eight limb path of Patanjali speaks of limbs Pranayama, Dharana, Dhyana, and then Samadhi. Patanjali’s formula for liberation places Pranayam before Meditation and Meditation before Samadhi. This is a very specific formulation and in this workshop we will explore and experience why this order of practice is so powerful. In addition we will learn how to use Mala beads in a seated meditation practice of silent mantra chanting. We will learn pranayama and meditation practices for your Self-Practice, giving you the tools for Living Enlightenment.

Teaching Techniques

Just because you are good in your yoga practice does not make you a good teacher. Teaching is a different skill, which is one reason there is a difference between a yoga teacher and a yoga master. We are seeking to be both Masters in our personal spiritual practice, as well as being great, expressive and charismatic teachers. This workshop will dissect what are the subtle skills that great teachers use to make their classes better than average. Use of music, tone of voice, pace of speech, and so many other factors are at play in the creation of an amazing yoga class for all participants. Skills of observation will be honed to prepare teachers to identify students who need special variations. This workshop will help you take your yoga teaching to the next level!

Pranayama Comprehensive Workshop

Many Pranayamas are described in the Hatha Yoga Pradipika and the Gerhand Samhita, sister scriptures from the middle ages. This workshop will cover almost all of the classical Pranayamas from the sacred scriptures. Each pranayama will be thoroughly explained and discussed, then demonstrated, then the class will experience.
Ujayi, Alternate Nostril Breathing, Sithali, Kabalabhati (Breath of Fire), Bastrika (Bellows) are all practiced in this very comprehensive introduction to the basics of Pranayama and the benefits they can incorporate into your life.

Prenatal Yoga

Learning how to teach pregnant women safely is an invaluable skill. This workshop is outsourced to our resident Prenatal Yoga Master Michelle Fonte and is designed to prepare the teachers understand the safety considerations in Pregnancy yoga. This workshop will also provide a beginners pre-natal yoga set for those who are interested in teaching Pre-Natal Yoga. This is usually run as a certification program, but certification is at complete discretion of the teacher.

Restorative Yoga

Restorative Yoga is one of the most advanced styles of Yoga to teach even though poses are all supported and relaxing and held for many minutes at a time. Restorative Yoga requires lots of information about the best ways to use props to create comfortable and sustainable poses for people to relax in. This workshop will cover the basics of theory about the healing benefits of Restorative Yoga and will then enjoy the experience of deep relaxation and renewal the comes from the healing and wonderful Restorative Yoga experience.

Yoga Nidra

Yoga Nidra is a guided relaxation experience which is practiced laying on the ground in Shavasana. Yoga Nidra is always guided because it requires the relinquishing of the mind to the guide of the meditation. Yoga Nidra is the ultimate restorative yoga pose. It is not sleeping! It is beneficial and deeply restful and healing as the brain is induced into the brainwaves that are most restorative and healing, the delta waves. We will discuss Yoga Nidra and then experience a 45 Minute Yoga Nidra guided by one of Fred’s Gurus.

Variations and Cues for Power Yoga

What is the most effective way to explain a Yoga pose to somebody? What are the best and most precise words to use? What is the least effort in speaking that can yield the most refined speech? This workshop will address this and do so in the context of a workshop on leading students through creative flow variations. There are literally infinite number of directions that can be taken from nearly every pose. This workshop will teach you to think creatively and be able to build your own safe, intelligent, and satisfying Yoga Vinyasa Flows.

Benefits and Contra-Indications in Yoga Asana

The many benefits of Yoga Asanas to health and mental well being could fill volumes. Yoga practice as a whole is beneficial and each of the individual poses within target different muscles, organs, glands, meridians, and visualizations. Each pose has specific benefits and this workshop will explore the main standing and seated poses and their benefits to strength, flexility, organs, glands and respiration.

Yoga poses can also be very dangerous if practiced by the wrong person. The wrong pose practiced by the wrong person can create injuries or other damage. Yoga teaching is a huge responsibility as you take another persons health and wellbeing into your hands. The other half of this workshop will discuss that are called Contra-Indications to Yoga Poses. These are conditions and situations that certain yoga poses are better avoided. We will cover the main diseases and conditions in a basic overview of what is contra-indicated in different scenarios. This information is mandatory for good and safe Yoga Instruction.

Teaching Privates

The art of teaching Private Yoga classes and very small groups is a skill that pays itself back a hundredfold. A Yoga teacher will generally make most of their money through teaching privately so the ability to be confident and resourceful in a home setting is required. Teaching 1 on 1 offers many opportunities and many challenges that group classes do not afford. This workshop will shed light on how to take advantage of the opportunities while avoiding any of the difficulties from the challenges so as to make your private clients very satisfied with their Yoga class and experience with you.

Obesity in the Developing world follows USA Obesity to epidemic level

2010-11-19T17:34:00.000-08:00

Obesity in the developing world is following right behind the outrageous rate of obesity in the USA and other developed countries. Obesity is a crime against humanity in my opinion, especially childhood obesity. How can we let our children get obese? It is disgusting...truly. Let us prevent obesity and get the kids back in shape with exercise and good healthy foods that are not sugary, not fried, and not loaded with saturated animal fat and cooked proteins.

These poor kids are growing up and they have NO CHANCE to be healthy in adulthood because they are on a fast track to diabetes and heart disease and social ills. It is really something that is so preventable that this country needs to take a hard look at the obvious food industry culprits and interest groups like Dairy and Beef/Chicken rendering companies. Lets all wake up and stop following the heard off the cliff and knock some sense into our selves and leaders to stand up against this. It is almost a national security issue if everyone in the country is Fat how can we even defend ourselves? we certainly can not defend ourselves against the trillions of dollars that will be wasted dealing with the health care ramifications of an entire nation of overweight and obese sick people.

and now as the NY Times reports... the rest of the world is following our sad example.

Developing countries should act now to head off their own "obesity epidemic", says a global policy group.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) says obesity levels are rising fast.
In a report in the Lancet medical journal, it says low-income countries cannot cope with the health consequences of wide scale obesity.
Rates in Brazil and South Africa already outstrip the OECD average.
Increasing obesity in industrialised countries such as the UK and US has brought with it rises in heart disease, cancer and diabetes.
However, increasing prosperity in some developing countries has led to a rise in "Western" lifestyles.
Now the OECD warns that they are catching up fast in terms of obesity rates.
Across all the countries represented in the OECD, 50% of adults are overweight or obese.
Childhood obesity
Rates in the Russian Federation are only just below this, and while fewer than 20% of Indians are classed this way, and fewer than 30% of Chinese people, the body says things are worsening fast.

Cell phones and brain cancer... an epidemic that is growing so please use Speakerphone only!

2010-11-19T17:23:00.000-08:00

To me it is a pretty simple fact. Radiation to the inner ear has a direct access to the brain and is not blocked by the bones of the skull like radiation would normally be. Long term exposure to the high levels of radiation emitted by all cell phones is causing an epidemic of brain tumors and brain cancer. Please everyone only use cell phones on SPEAKER PHONE and keep those things far away from your ear! Read below if you don't believe. NY TIMES reported today:

I’m paraphrasing here. But the legal departments of cellphone manufacturers slip a warning about holding the phone against your head or body into the fine print of the little slip that you toss aside when unpacking your phone. Apple, for example, doesn’t want iPhones to come closer than 5/8 of an inch; Research In Motion, BlackBerry’s manufacturer, is still more cautious: keep a distance of about an inch.

The warnings may be missed by an awful lot of customers. The United States has 292 million wireless numbers in use, approaching one for every adult and child, according to C.T.I.A.-The Wireless Association, the cellphone industry’s primary trade group. It says that as of June, about a quarter of domestic households were wireless-only.

If health issues arise from ordinary use of this hardware, it would affect not just many customers but also a huge industry. Our voice calls — we chat on our cellphones 2.26 trillion minutes annually, according to the C.T.I.A. — generate $109 billion for the wireless carriers.

The cellphone instructions-cum-warnings were brought to my attention by Devra Davis, an epidemiologist who has worked for the University of Pittsburgh and has published a book about cellphone radiation, “Disconnect.” I had assumed that radiation specialists had long ago established that worries about low-energy radiation were unfounded. Her book, however, surveys the scientific investigations and concludes that the question is not yet settled.

Brain cancer is a concern that Ms. Davis takes up. Over all, there has not been a general increase in its incidence since cellphones arrived. But the average masks an increase in brain cancer in the 20-to-29 age group and a drop for the older population.

“Most cancers have multiple causes,” she says, but she points to laboratory research that suggests mechanisms by which low-energy radiation could damage cells in ways that could possibly lead to cancer.

Children are more vulnerable to radiation than adults, Ms. Davis and other scientists point out. Radiation that penetrates only two inches into the brain of an adult will reach much deeper into the brains of children because their skulls are thinner and their brains contain more absorptive fluid. No field studies have been completed to date on cellphone radiation and children, she says.

San Francisco has become the first city in the US to require mobile phone retailers to post radiation levels next to the handsets they sell.

The board of supervisors, or council, voted 10-1 to approve the measure.

"This is about helping people make informed choices," said the law's chief sponsor, Supervisor Sophie Maxwell.

The mobile phone industry has pointed to studies that it says show mobile phone radiation was not harmful to people.

The South Beach Detox ONLINE and Local Versions available

2010-11-06T22:02:00.000-07:00

If you want to improve your life in any way... eating smarter is a great way to start. It is not easy to just stop your habits and patterns without a bit of guidance. For this we have created the South Beach Detox to not only give you a great and effective Detox, but to also provide you with some very potent skills to live more attuned to your biology and thus receive the enormous benefits which come from wisdom in action.

The South Beach Detox will accomplish both a short term detox and a long term reprogram of your sometimes destructive patterns that are easily transcended with the right illumination.

Welcome to the South Beach Detox… where you will create your own Bliss.

The South Beach Detox programs are the perfect combination of Food, Exercise, and Meditation to create the ideal environment for your body to rest, detox, and recharge.

Let us begin by defining what a detox is, why they work, and then why the South Beach Detox is unique/special.

All Detox Programs operate under the principle that when we eat less, our digestive organs are requiring less energy and thus our body has this energy liberated for use in more important directions, like cleansing and healing.
The South Beach Detox is special for several reasons.

The Sobe Detox utilizes a proprietary three pronged approach that creates a specific positive feedback cycle virtually guaranteeing success and transformation.
Intelligent, Complete Nutrition, Exercise and Yoga, and use of Meditation and Awareness are the three components that feed on each other to create a snowball effect of positive transformation that can be experienced on every level of your being.

Most importantly you will learn how easy these skills are to perpetuate in your life after the Detox.

As you proceed through these next few days, please do as much resting and relaxing as possible. Take naps or rests anytime you can. Try to avoid unnecessary social events or conversations of any sort. Remember that this is special time for you to go within, feel the connection with your self, and above all, rest and relax.

During the days of the South Beach Detox it is suggested that you speak to very few people, if any, about your Detox. Staying quiet is one of the secret keys to success and this is especially true for a time when rest is so important.

And always know that as long as less energy is required by the digestive system, the body considers this rest, even if you end up going about your daily work.

Never be hungry. If you are hungry drink more ReNew Me Powder and fill your stomach up each time by drinking lots in a short time rather than slow sips.

So get ready to feel great! The key to the South Beach Detox is our combination of the Right Food, the Perfect Exercise, and Practice of Meditation and Awareness to bring a feeling of contentment and well being into our life! Enjoy the process of learning new things and feeling more peaceful everyday and experience this entire program as a blessing, a true opportunity, to realize your dreams.

For all details on the components of the South Beach Detox and other important information make sure you read the manual and listen to all the tracks in this program.

Prevention is the best solution! Please people let prevention save you from suffering!

2010-11-06T18:01:00.000-07:00

It is impossible to overemphasize the value of prevention. There is no doubt that this is a complex and polluted world and sometimes ailments can not be prevented or are genetic. But that is more rare than you might believe and the fact is that we MUST do whatever we can to act intelligently so we can prevent the Cancer diagnosis that many people are receiving these days.

Cancer is not good. But it can be a sign that lifestyle needs to change and if heeded can lead to a transformational experience and bring enlightenment. The problem with Cancer is the diagnosis itself and the treatments and the lack of quality of life that can follow. Below is a NY Times article on the Side Effects of Radiation that were not well understood by the patient.

If you want to cure yourself of cancer, begin to research the thousands of cases of people who have cured their cancer through raw foods. The best place to cure cancer in the United States is Hippocrates Institute in Palm Beach, Fl.

Prevent Cancer by eating lots of well washed fruits, and vegetable based foods. Eat as much Raw Vegan Food as humanly possible... enjoying the blessings of Fruit that God put on this planet for us. Drink Green Liquids like Spirulina or A.F.A. Blue Green Algae (best) and exercise everyday. Exercise everyday with Yoga if possible, eat according to your primate biology (you are not an omnivore and certainly not a carnivore), and become aware of patterns of self judgment and self criticism and transcend with waves of gratitude and surrender.

This is the formula for the prevention of almost all disease. To the degree that our actions will assist us in prevention, these are the actions to take. Be smart, be aware and then do what you want! It is your life... just realize that health is the only WEALTH.

NY Times 10/06/10

Wiry, fair-haired and in his 60s, the patient had received a prostate cancer diagnosis a year earlier. When his doctors told him that surgery and radiation therapy were equally effective and that it was up to him to decide, he chose radiation with little hesitation.

But one afternoon a month after completing his treatment, the patient was shocked to see red urine collecting in the urinal. After his doctors performed a series of tests and bladder irrigations through a pencil-size catheter, he learned that the bleeding was a complication of the radiation treatment.

He recalled briefly hearing about this side effect three months earlier, but none of the reports he had been given or collected mentioned it, and once he had recovered from the angst of the emergency room and the doctor’s office visits and the discomfort of the clinical work-up, he didn’t give it more thought — until a few weeks later, when he started bleeding again.

By the time I met him, he was in the middle of his third visit to the hospital. “I feel like I’m tied to this place,” he said. He showed me a plastic jug partly filled with urine the color of fruit punch, and he described a post-treatment life marked by fear of going to the bathroom and discovering blood. “If I had known that my life would be like this after radiation,” he sighed, “I would have chosen the surgery.”

Whether conducted at a laboratory bench or in clinical trials, medical research has long been driven by a single overriding goal — the need to find a cure. Usually referred to more modestly as a search for “the most effective treatment,” this standard has served as both a barometer of success and a major criterion for funding. Most published studies are marked by a preponderance of data documenting even minor blips in laboratory values or changes in the size of a spot of cancer or area of heart muscle damage on specialized X-rays. Some studies bolster the apparent success of their results with additional data on societal effects like treatment costs or numbers of workdays missed.

Few studies, however, focus on the patient experience.

The result of all this emphasis on cure has been a nearly embarrassing richness of choice for patients with diabetes, heart disease, H.I.V. infections and even some cancers. The increasingly sophisticated treatment regimens that now make up medicine’s armamentarium have transformed once life-threatening diseases into chronic ones, but in the process have given rise to a group of individuals who are caught in the unenviable position of living with an illness that never quite goes away. No longer forced to make once-in-a-lifetime life-or-death treatment decisions, they instead struggle each day with the side effects of the very treatments that keep them alive.

For many of these patients, the most important question becomes not “What treatment will allow me to live the longest?” but rather “Which treatment can I live with?”

Now, according to a paper published last month in the policy journal Health Affairs, the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute, a new initiative mandated by the federal health care overhaul, may offer a chance to alter the prevailing winds of medical research so the needs of this growing segment of the patient population are addressed. With a 21-member board made up of individuals from both the public and private sectors, the institute has a mandate to set the agenda for research comparing treatments for common diseases and to finance the most important studies. But according to the paper’s authors, the potential of such an enterprise will be fully realized only if the institute supports initiatives and strategies that place the patient experience not only front and center in research but also smack in the middle of the medical mainstream.

“To some extent, we’ve conquered death,” said Dr. Albert W. Wu, lead author and a general internist and professor of health policy and management at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore. “Now we have people living with chronic illnesses, and how they experience quality of life every day has become an important part of how they are doing and whether the treatments are worthwhile.”

To effectively capture the patient perspective, Dr. Wu and his co-authors propose making patient-reported outcomes a more routine part of clinical studies and practice and administrative data collection, in some cases requiring the information for reimbursement. For several months now, they have been incorporating data about patient experiences into routine medical practice at Johns Hopkins. Using a dedicated portal called PatientViewpoint.org, patients can, at the suggestion of their physicians, fill out surveys about their energy levels, social functioning, mental health, nausea and pain. The information is then handled like more traditional clinical testing; access is reserved for the patients themselves and their doctors.

Currently, the site is open only to patients diagnosed with breast or prostate cancer, but Dr. Wu and his colleagues hope that eventually all doctors will be able to order patient surveys that measure experiences like levels of pain, physical functioning or depression, proactively identifying results that are high or low, then reviewing those results with patients. And despite initial concerns that patients might feel overburdened by the questionnaires, most have been enthusiastic.

“Patients want to have more conversations with their physicians and other providers about these kinds of issues,” Dr. Wu said. “Sometimes it’s difficult to cover all this information during the medical encounter, and these surveys may be another opportunity to do that.”

Not all clinicians or researchers, however, are eager to embrace patient-reported outcomes. Many have never received training in the research methods involved and are skeptical about the value of a discipline or drill that is unfamiliar. “This is considered to be squishy, soft stuff,” Dr. Wu said. “It’s still not something you can order on a laboratory slip.”

Nonetheless, Dr. Wu is hopeful that the new Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute will provide more direction to all researchers, while establishing new and more comprehensive standards that require patient-reported and quality-of-life outcomes. “I think we have a real opportunity right now, and this institute has great potential to be a positive force in understanding how treatments work and what’s effective and for whom,” he said.

But he also cautioned: “We have to remember to include the patients. We have to include their perspective if we want to come up with evidence that they can really use to make better decisions for themselves about treatment and care.”

US Government Promoting Cheese and Warning against it at same time?

2010-11-06T17:45:00.000-07:00

This is just fascinating. We need to take a hard look at the role food companies are playing in the overall degradation of our health. Yes it is peoples responsibility to eat for themselves, but the game is stacked unfairly against intelligence when the marketing and commercials come into play. It is not easy to resist the temptations and seductions of the campaigns.

And now the Federal Government wants to help market cheese? and is at the same time engaged in an anti-obesity drive that suggest cheese be drastically reduced from the diet?

If you want to fight childhood obesity, it is simple. Reduce or eliminate animal based foods from kids diets, eliminate refined sugars (as dangerous as cocaine in some ways), eliminate fried foods and fast foods. Exercise every day.

that is it! read below and see the details of government hypocrisy at its best!

Domino’s Pizza was hurting early last year. Domestic sales had fallen, and a survey of big pizza chain customers left the company tied for the worst tasting pies.

Then help arrived from an organization called Dairy Management. It teamed up with Domino’s to develop a new line of pizzas with 40 percent more cheese, and proceeded to devise and pay for a $12 million marketing campaign.
Consumers devoured the cheesier pizza, and sales soared by double digits. “This partnership is clearly working,” Brandon Solano, the Domino’s vice president for brand innovation, said in a statement to The New York Times.
But as healthy as this pizza has been for Domino’s, one slice contains as much as two-thirds of a day’s maximum recommended amount of saturated fat, which has been linked to heart disease and is high in calories.
And Dairy Management, which has made cheese its cause, is not a private business consultant. It is a marketing creation of the United States Department of Agriculture — the same agency at the center of a federal anti-obesity drive that discourages over-consumption of some of the very foods Dairy Management is vigorously promoting.
Urged on by government warnings about saturated fat, Americans have been moving toward low-fat milk for decades, leaving a surplus of whole milk and milk fat. Yet the government, through Dairy Management, is engaged in an effort to find ways to get dairy back into Americans’ diets, primarily through cheese.
Americans now eat an average of 33 pounds of cheese a year, nearly triple the 1970 rate. Cheese has become the largest source of saturated fat; an ounce of many cheeses contains as much saturated fat as a glass of whole milk.
When Michelle Obama implored restaurateurs in September to help fight obesity, she cited the proliferation of cheeseburgers and macaroni and cheese. “I want to challenge every restaurant to offer healthy menu options,” she told the National Restaurant Association’s annual meeting.
But in a series of confidential agreements approved by agriculture secretaries in both the Bush and Obama administrations, Dairy Management has worked with restaurants to expand their menus with cheese-laden products.
Consider the Taco Bell steak quesadilla, with cheddar, pepper jack, mozzarella and a creamy sauce. “The item used an average of eight times more cheese than other items on their menu,” the Agriculture Department said in a report, extolling Dairy Management’s work — without mentioning that the quesadilla has more than three-quarters of the daily recommended level of saturated fat and sodium.
Dairy Management, whose annual budget approaches $140 million, is largely financed by a government-mandated fee on the dairy industry. But it also receives several million dollars a year from the Agriculture Department, which appoints some of its board members, approves its marketing campaigns and major contracts and periodically reports to Congress on its work.
The organization’s activities, revealed through interviews and records, provide a stark example of inherent conflicts in the Agriculture Department’s historical roles as both marketer of agriculture products and America’s nutrition police.
In one instance, Dairy Management spent millions of dollars on research to support a national advertising campaign promoting the notion that people could lose weight by consuming more dairy products, records and interviews show. The campaign went on for four years, ending in 2007, even though other researchers — one paid by Dairy Management itself — found no such weight-loss benefits.
When the campaign was challenged as false, government lawyers defended it, saying the Agriculture Department “reviewed, approved and continually oversaw” the effort.
Dr. Walter C. Willett, chairman of the nutrition department at the Harvard School of Public Health and a former member of the federal government’s nutrition advisory committee, said: “The U.S.D.A. should not be involved in these programs that are promoting foods that we are consuming too much of already. A small amount of good-flavored cheese can be compatible with a healthy diet, but consumption in the U.S. is enormous and way beyond what is optimally healthy.”
The Agriculture Department declined to make top officials available for interviews for this article, and Dairy Management would not comment. In answering written questions, the department said that dairy promotion was intended to bolster farmers and rural economies, and that its oversight left Dairy Management’s board with “significant independence” in deciding how best to support those interests.
The department acknowledged that cheese is high in saturated fat, but said that lower milk consumption had made cheese an important source of calcium.
“When eaten in moderation and with attention to portion size, cheese can fit into a low-fat, healthy diet,” the department said.
In its reports to Congress, however, the Agriculture Department tallies Dairy Management’s successes in millions of pounds of cheese served.

Guayaquil Yoga Teacher Training Starts MONDAY!!!

2010-11-04T21:48:00.000-07:00

Fred Busch Power Yoga Teacher Training, a Yoga Alliance Certified 30 Day intensive course Guayaquil, Ecuador November 8th

Hosted by Samadhi Centro de Yoga en Guayaquil

For info about future Teacher Trainings in South America contact alex@limayoga.com

Teacher Training Guayaquil starts Nov. 8th 2010

2010-10-31T10:39:00.000-07:00

I am so excited to meet the great group developing at Samadhi Centro de Yoga in Guayaquil Ecuador for my first 200 Hour Teacher Training conducted in Ecuador. There still may be a space or two left if interested....call for details or email alex@limayoga.com or call 305 606 2169

Yoga Alliance Teacher Training in Ecuador with Fred Busch, Andrea Goldbaum, andAlex Landazuri

Begins Nov 8th 201o
Samadhi Centro de Yoga

Great News! A new way to kill chickens!

2010-10-31T10:30:00.001-07:00

i just heard the news that 2 large commercial chicken slaughterhouses are going to employ a different way of killing their chickens. Generally they grab the chicken and hold it upside down and while it is resisting and feeling the stress of death, they cut its neck and let them run around bleeding and suffering for a while before they eventually die.

what a great evolution of humanity that 2 chicken producers will now use a new technique... gas the birds with carbon dioxide until they pass out... once unconscious they hang them up on a string and slit their throats while they are sleeping.

it is less barbaric... but only slightly and now it seems even more like a concentration camp then before.

if people are so interested in chickens and other animals not suffering, why are we killing them?
why do we pretend to care about these birds or other innocent animals when we are just killing them anyway.

it would be best to not depend on animal proteins which are inherently cancerous, and move to a more logical plant based diet where we don't have to kill chickens at all.

Salmonella and Eggs... but why eat eggs anyway?

2010-09-23T07:29:00.000-07:00

An Iowa Egg Farmer and a History of Salmonella

By WILLIAM NEUMAN

Published: September 21, 2010

Eggs are diseased ridden half voided out life forms that are literally torture chambers for the chickens that are forced to produce them... And they are disgusting and full of nasty bacteria. Should be avoided. Look at how there is no regulation at all!

On a July night in 1987, scores of elderly and chronically ill patients at Bird S. Coler Memorial Hospital in New York City began to fall violently sick with food poisoning from eggs tainted with salmonella.

Amber Waterman/Sun Journal, via A.P.

Austin J. DeCoster

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“It was like a war zone,” said Dr. Philippe Tassy, the doctor on call as the sickness started to rage through the hospital. By the time the outbreak ended more than two weeks later, nine people had died and about 500 people had become sick. It remains the deadliest outbreak in this country attributed to eggs infected with the bacteria known as Salmonella enteritidis.

This year, the same bacteria sickened thousands of people nationwide and led to the recall of half a billion eggs.

Despite the gap of decades, there is a crucial link between the two outbreaks: in both cases, the eggs came from farms owned by Austin J. DeCoster, one of the country’s biggest egg producers.

Mr. DeCoster’s frequent run-ins with regulators over labor, environmental and immigration violations have been well cataloged. But the close connections between Mr. DeCoster’s egg empire and the spread of salmonella in the United States have received far less scrutiny.

While some state regulators took steps to clamp down on tainted eggs, the federal government was much slower to act, despite entreaties from state officials alarmed at the growing toll.

Farms tied to Mr. DeCoster were a primary source of Salmonella enteritidis in the United States in the 1980s, when some of the first major outbreaks of human illness from the bacteria in eggs occurred, according to health officials and public records. At one point, New York and Maryland regulators believed DeCoster eggs were such a threat that they banned sales of the eggs in their states.

“When we were in the thick of it, the name that came up again and again was DeCoster Egg Farms,” said Paul A. Blake, who was head of the enteric diseases division of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the 1980s, when investigators began to tackle the emerging problem of salmonella and eggs.

By the end of that decade, regulators in New York had forced Mr. DeCoster to allow salmonella testing of his farms and, along with other states, pushed the egg industry in the eastern United States to improve safety, which led to a drop in illness.

But the efforts were patchwork. For example, Iowa, where Mr. DeCoster has five farms tied to the current outbreak, required no testing.

President Clinton goes VEGAN

2010-09-20T08:31:00.000-07:00

Bill Clinton has finally used his amazing intellectual prowess to focus on his health and has decided to become Vegan in order to reverse heart disease and live longer to enjoy his Grandchildren!

This could be great for the Boomers who have been reluctant to want to change their lifestlyle and who have blamed their age and being too set in their ways! Not anymore!

Bill Clinton talks about going veg to reverse heart disease

, so he can be healthy in the years ahead to see his potential grandchildren.

Scroll down for video.

We also have this from ecorazzi.com:

"I'm trying to be one of those experimenters," said Clinton. "Since 1986, several hundred people who have tried essentially a plant-based diet, not ingesting any cholesterol from any source, has seen their bodies start to heal themselves -- break up the arterial blockage, break up the calcium deposits around the heart. 82 percent of the people who have done this have had this result, so I want to see if I can be one of them."

Just hours ago, Ecorazzi received exclusive information from a friend of Clinton (who wishes to remain anonymous) regarding first-hand conversations with the former president about his vegan diet.

According to our source, Clinton decided to adopt the diet in the early part of May. While he does occasionally eat fish, the former president otherwise follows a strict vegan diet.

What made him go vegan? According to our source, Clinton has read many books on the topic, including books by T. Colin Campbell, Caldwell Esselstyn and Dr. Dean Ornish. Although losing weight

was a benefit of the dietary change, the choice to go vegan was about more than just losing weight.

"I've never known him not to say what's on his mind," says our source. "And he knows quite a bit and likely has a lot to say about the benefits of a vegan diet. He has read The China Study, and he knows the issues. With time, I think it's likely he could become the most outspoken proponent of a complete vegan diet."

High Fructose Corn Syrup name changing to fool the public

2010-09-15T19:38:00.000-07:00

It is really amazing that it is legal to do stuff like what the corn industry is attempting to ask the FDA for. They are simply asking permission to change the name of high-fructose corn syrup to 'corn sugar'. This is a blatant and unacceptable attempt to fool the public into eating foods with high fructose corn syrup without knowing it.

Refined sugars like high fructose corn syrup is really dangerous and leads to obesity and diabetes directly. The FDA should not even consider this request. It is criminal in my opinion.

A New Name for High-Fructose Corn Syrup

By TARA PARKER-POPE

Would high-fructose corn syrup, by any other name, have sweeter appeal?

The Corn Refiners Association, which represents firms that make the syrup, has been trying to improve the image of the much maligned sweetener with ad campaigns promoting it as a natural ingredient made from corn. Now, the group has petitioned the United States Food and Drug Administration to start calling the ingredient “corn sugar,” arguing that a name change is the only way to clear up consumer confusion about the product.

“Clearly the name is confusing consumers,” said Audrae Erickson, president of the Washington-based group, in an interview. “Research shows that ‘corn sugar’ better communicates the amount of calories, the level of fructose and the sweetness in this ingredient.”

According to the market research firm NPD Group, about 58 percent of Americans say they are concerned that high-fructose corn syrup poses a health risk.

Some scientists over the years have speculated that high-fructose corn syrup may contribute to obesity by somehow disrupting normal metabolic function, but the research has been inconclusive. As a result, most leading scientists and nutrition experts agree that in terms of health, the effect of high-fructose corn syrup is the same as regular sugar, and that too much of either ingredient is bad for your health.

Marion Nestle, a professor in New York University’s department of nutrition and a longtime food industry critic, says that Americans consume too much of all types of sugar, but that there is no meaningful biochemical difference between table sugar and high-fructose corn syrup.

“I’m not eager to help the corn refiners sell more of their stuff,” Dr. Nestle wrote in an e-mail. “But you have to feel sorry for them. High-fructose corn syrup is the new trans fat. Everyone thinks it’s poison, and food companies are getting rid of it as fast as they can.”

Dr. Nestle says she thinks the plural “corn sugars” is a better description of high-fructose corn syrup, which is actually a mixture of glucose and fructose. But she agrees that the corn refiners “have lots of reasons to want the change.”

“Even I have to admit that it’s not an unreasonable one,” Dr. Nestle said.

Michael Jacobson, executive director of the health advocacy group Center for Science in the Public Interest, said he thought the term “high-fructose corn syrup” had misled many into thinking the sweetener was composed mainly of fructose, a simple sugar found in honey and fruit.

“Sugar and high-fructose corn syrup are nutritionally the same,’’ said Dr. Jacobson, who has a doctorate in microbiology. “I don’t know if ‘corn sugar’ is the best term, but it’s better than ‘high-fructose corn syrup.’ ”

High-fructose corn syrup, which came into widespread use in the 1970s, isn’t particularly high in fructose, but was so named to distinguish it from ordinary, glucose-containing corn syrup, according to a report in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. High-fructose corn syrup and sucrose (also known as table sugar) contain about the same amount of glucose and fructose. In fact, one commonly used version of the ingredient known as HFCS-42 actually contains less fructose (42 percent) than table sugar, which has 50 percent fructose, according to the report.

“The name is confusing, and consumers don’t understand that it has the same calories as sugar,” said Ms. Erickson, of the Corn Refiners’ Association. “They also think it’s sweeter tasting. That’s why the alternate name provides clarity for consumers when it comes to the ingredient composition and helps them better understand what’s in their foods.”

Table sugar comes primarily from sugar cane or sugar beets. High-fructose corn syrup is made essentially by soaking corn kernels to extract corn starch, and using enzymes to turn the glucose in the starch into fructose. The ingredient is a favorite of food makers for practical reasons. Compared with sucrose, high-fructose corn syrup doesn’t mask flavors, has a lower freezing point and retains moisture better, which is useful in making foods like chewy granola bars. And because the corn crop in the United States is heavily subsidized, high-fructose corn syrup is also cheap. As a result, it’s now used in so many foods, from crackers to soft drinks, that it has become one of the biggest sources of calories in the American diet.

But the public perception of high-fructose corn syrup as unhealthful has prompted many food companies to stop using it in their products, including Hunt’s Ketchup, Ocean Spray Cranberry Juice and Wheat Thins crackers.

The F.D.A. has six months to respond to the name-change petition. If the agency accepts it, the decision on whether to allow the name “corn sugar” on food labels may take another 12 to 18 months.

Although food label changes aren’t common, the F.D.A. has allowed name changes in the past. The ingredient first called “low erucic acid rapeseed oil” was changed to “canola oil” in the 1980s. More recently, the F.D.A. allowed prunes to be called “dried plums.”

“It’s rare that food ingredient labels are changed, and when they are it’s always been to provide clarity to consumers,” Ms. Erickson said. “This is a classic case for consumers to better understand an ingredient.”

Low Carb diet has too many Animal Foods! NY Times Reports Today

2010-09-14T05:19:00.000-07:00

NY Times reports today that the Low Carb diets like Atkins Diet are not safe. Article explains how people who remove the carbohydrate calories in favor of animal food calories, as prescribed in Atkins Diet, are seriously compromising their health.

I always say that losing weight must be done while getting healthier and should not be done at the expense of overall health.

People in my field have long suspected Atkins Diet for being dangerous. This article is showing that more of the mainstream researchers are finally becoming aware of the facts of high animal product diets.

Nutrition: Risky Additions to a Low-Carb Diet

By RONI CARYN RABIN

Atkins-style low-carbohydrate diets help people lose weight, but people who simply replace the bread and pasta with calories from animal protein and animal fat may face an increased risk of early death from cancer and heart disease, a new study reports.

Health Guide: Heart Disease
More Vital Signs Columns

The study found that the death rate among people who adhered most closely to a low-carb regimen was 12 percent higher over about two decades than with those who consumed diets higher in carbohydrates.

But death rates varied, depending on the sources of protein and fat used to displace carbohydrates. Low-carb eaters who drew more protein and fat from vegetable sources like beans and nuts were 20 percent less likely to die over the period than people who ate a high-carbohydrate diet.

But low-carb dieters who got most of their protein and fat from animal sources like red and processed meats were 14 percent more likely to die of heart disease and 28 percent more likely to die of cancer, the analysis found.

The study, published Sept. 7 in Annals of Internal Medicine, analyzed data from more than 85,000 healthy women aged 34 to 59 who participated in the Nurses’ Health Study, and almost 45,000 men aged 40 to 75 who took part in the Health Professionals’ Follow-Up Study. Participants filled out questionnaires every four years.

“If people want to follow a low-carb diet, this provides some guidance,” said the paper’s lead author, Teresa T. Fung, an associate professor of nutrition at Simmons College in Boston. “They should probably eat less meats.”

Obesity and Colon Cancer connected and on RISE! LETS FIX THIS!

2010-09-13T17:04:00.000-07:00

I seem to be repeating myself, when i say how simple it is to prevent things like colon cancer. Prevention is better than cure i always try to teach. However don't be discouraged if you have had your diagnosis, simple and effective skills can help your body heal and also bring you well being and deep peace within yourself. Yoga, meditation, and eating decently are the key to both prevention and cure!

See what the BBC is saying about the rise of Colon Cancer. We eat so horribly. So incredibly badly, that it is no wonder that it would reflect in the colon.

We can all move forward with health and well being with just a bit of intelligence and awareness.
Thankfully, Michelle Obama is directing an important campaign of the war against obesity.

I don't believe in a war on drugs, or a war on terrorism, or a war an anything really. But for some reason i have no problem with an all out war against obesity!

Colon cancer cases 'may rise 50%'

Excess fat around the middle is a risk factor

The UK is heading for a 50% increase in the number of new colon cancer cases over the next 30 years, says an international team of scientists.

The forecast, in the European Journal of Cancer, is for 35,000 new cases a year by 2040, compared with 23,000 now.

Rising obesity is one reason - and if the UK reached US levels that could add another 2,000 to the total, they say.

“Start Quote

We can safely say increasingly physical activity across Europe to the level already achieved in The Netherlands, where everybody cycles, would be of substantial benefit”

End Quote Professor Jan-Willem Coebergh, Erasmus University

The study used cancer data from seven countries to predict how cancer rates might change with an ageing population.

Each year there are 38,000 cases of bowel cancer, which can split into those in the colon and those lower down in the rectum. This latest study looked just at those in the colon itself.

Two of the biggest risk factors for colon cancer are physical inactivity and being overweight or obese.

Excess fat

Dr Andrew Renehan, from the University of Manchester, and one of the authors of the research, said that the computer models allowed researchers to predict what would happen to cancer rates in a variety of scenarios.

If UK trends in obesity and activity stayed as they are now, the predicted figure of approximately 35,000 cases a year is reached by 2040.

If obesity gets worse, following trends set in the US, where the problem has spiralled in recent years, then the annual figure is close to 37,000.

But if that does not happen, and there is a modest increase in activity, then that rise turns into a similar-sized fall.

And if the UK managed to match levels of physical exercise in The Netherlands - the best among the countries studied, that would prevent approximately 2,000 cases.

Dr Renehan said: "The predictive modelling is beginning to tease out the independent relevance of each of these factors in the prevention of colon cancer.

"We know that large numbers of colon cancer cases could be avoided by reducing exposure to risk factors."

Another researcher, Professor Jan-Willem Coebergh, from Erasmus University in The Netherlands, said: "We can safely say increasingly physical activity across Europe to the level already achieved in The Netherlands, where everybody cycles, would be of substantial benefit."

And a second study published at the same time appeared to show a small additional risk not just for obese people, but anyone carrying excess fat around their middle - even if their overall weight appears near-normal.

In the group studied, every additional inch of waistline from the slimmest to the biggest-waisted meant an extra 2% risk of bowel cancer, even when the BMI of the person was accounted for in the calculations.

The research, carried out by Imperial College London for the World Cancer Research Fund, combined the results of previous studies into the issue to produce more reliable evidence of the link.

Lower Back Pain Cures

2010-09-12T06:43:00.001-07:00

Lower Back Pain is very common and many people start yoga because of it. Lower Back Pain can be alleviated permanently with a little attention to your daily regiment. Just a few daily exercises involving opening of the hamstrings can lead to a profound change in the quality of your life!

I am finishing the final touches on a book about healing lower back pain...feel free to contact me beforehand if you need help.

Stong Handshakes Longer Lives

2010-09-12T06:38:00.000-07:00

BBC Reports today that people with a strong handshake are likely to live longer. It also said that people who are generally more nimble and agile will generally live longer. It is basically explaining what we know which his that activity, exercise, strength, and physical well being go together. What is critical to appreciate also is how much mental health is related to exercise and activity.

Firm handshake link to long life

A firm handshake was one of the signs of longevity

The strength of your handshake could be a clue to how long you'll live, say scientists from University College London.

They matched older people's balance, grip strength and ability to get up from a chair with their risk of an earlier death.

Those who did best were likely to live longer, the British Medical Journal reported.

It is hoped such simple tests might help doctors spot "at-risk" patients.

“Start Quote

With time this could be relevant to younger people in terms of preventative medicine”

End Quote Professor Avan Aihie Sayer Southampton University

The study, carried out at the Medical Research Council-funded Unit for Lifelong Health and Ageing, combined the results of more than 30 earlier research projects, involving tens of thousands of people which looked at "physical capability" and mortality.

The people involved were mostly over the age of 60, but living in the community rather than hospitals or care homes.

The researchers found that death rates over the period of the studies were 67% higher in people with the weakest grip strength compared with the strongest.

Michelle Obama and 'Let's Move' leading the WAY!

2010-09-10T06:53:00.000-07:00

NY Times Reports today:

There is no doubt that the first lady, Michelle Obama, is on to something extremely important for the country. There is no more significant issue... on all fronts... than obesity and all of the negative implications that are associated. It is almost as much a national security issue as a health issue as a psychological well being issue as much as a economic issue. It is the center of the spoke of a wheel of problems.

I commend the first lady for her wisdom, energy, and intelligence to create such a movement. I will not call it a program... this is a movement!

And i can not wait to join the ranks and help as much as i can!

fred

SLIDELL, La. — Declaring the beginning of the “next phase” of a program to combat childhood obesity, the first lady, Michelle Obama, called on Congress on Wednesday to pass legislation that would make many of the program’s initiatives possible.

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The latest on President Obama, his administration and other news from Washington and around the nation. Join the discussion.

In a speech at an elementary school here, Mrs. Obama ticked off the main points of her “Let’s Move!” campaign: encouraging children to exercise, providing more free and reduced-price school meals and making the food in schools more nutritious. Explicitly tying school nutrition to academic performance, she pledged to expand the program on all these points.

But Mrs. Obama, who has typically not waded into Congressional debates, emphasized that achieving much of this was dependent on federal lawmakers.

“It’s important to be clear,” she said, “that we can’t do any of this unless we pass the Child Nutrition legislation that’s before Congress right now.”

Under the act, food sold in schools would have to meet new nutrition guidelines, but schools would get an increased amount of federal reimbursement money for meals. It would also expand the number of poorer students who are eligible for free and reduced-price school meals.

In early August, on the eve of the act’s passage in the Senate, Mrs. Obama wrote an op-ed article in The Washington Post encouraging lawmakers to vote yes, which they did, unanimously.

The bill is now expected to be on the agenda this month in the House of Representatives, where lawmakers have been working on a version that would add new elements, and more financing, to the $4.5 billion version that passed in the Senate.

“Congress is very close to getting this done but still there are a number of barriers,” said Margo Wootan, the director of nutrition policy for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a group that provided input to the White House in the creation of a plan to address childhood obesity.

“This would be a historic change to the programs,” Ms. Wootan said. “I’m agonizing daily about it.”

Mrs. Obama delivered her speech at an elementary school here that is one of 25 in the district — out of only 59 in the country — that have received $2,000 cash awards from the United States Department of Agriculture for promoting healthy eating and physical activity.

It also sits just over the state line from Mississippi, which has the highest rate of childhood obesity in the country.

Why Vegetarian? supports common sense arguments!

2010-07-27T19:01:00.000-07:00

The following arguments are the same as i explain in my food talk. They concern what i call the psychological evidence that humans are not meat eaters. There is so much physiological evidence that meat is not good for our bodies or minds, but this is more interesting than that! This is deeper evidence that we were not equipped to eat dead animals by G-d. If we were, we would go about it the same way all the others do. I think this stuff is common sense and obvious... what do you think?

Why Vegetarian?

There Was
No Slaughterhouse
in the Garden of Eden...

The main reason for becoming vegetarian is self preservation. The consumption of animal products causes the pH of the body to become acidic, leading to cellular degeneration and the onslaught of disease. This has been confirmed in hundreds of scientific studies. An acidic pH in the body is the primary precurser to all disease. When you choose a vegetarian lifestyle, you not only help yourself, but you help the planet as well.

"As we sow, so shall we reap." "Thou shalt not kill." "For every action there is a reaction." "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." "Whatever we do to the creatures of the earth, we do to ourselves." In many ways and in many cultures, the same message has been delivered. We must gently live with others if we want gentle reactions. Inflicting pain and death brings the reaction of premature pain and death. Witness our healthcare system.

No Human is a Carnivore
If you've ever watched a carnivore eat. You know instantly that humans are not carnivores. Carnivores stalk their prey. They attack, usually biting through the neck and ripping the throat to shreds. After killing, they rip open the belly with their sharp teeth and devour the entrails. They lap up the blood. Finally, they chew the bones, crushing them in their powerful jaws. No human could eat like a carnivore eats, except perhaps, the totally insane. We are not carnivores.

The only way humans can eat animals is to disguise what they are really doing... get someone else to kill the animal, then drain and dispose of its blood, slice the muscles into pieces that are unrecognizable, grind the internal organs to make "sausages", cook it, smother it with sauces and seasonings... all in an effort to keep from experiencing the reality of what a carnivore does and is. We are not carnivores.

If you have ever had a pet, you know that animals have feelings, that they are intuitive, sensitive creatures. The production of animals for the consumption of their muscle and organ tissues is less than human. If we are going to create a Heaven on Earth, these atrocities must end. Interspersed throughout the text below are positive options and useful statistics.

Some statistics

Over 7 billion farm animals die or are slaughtered in the U.S. every year for the production of flesh, mostly in highly mechanized factory-like systems using unprecedented, largely unregulated methods of brutality, danger, and cruelty.

Over a billion cattle populate the earth, with a combined weight greater than the entire human population. They are sustained unnaturally in these numbers to satisfy demand for their flesh. They are a primary cause for the destruction of the environment. Beef cattle return only 1 pound of meat for every 16 pounds of grain and soybeans they are fed, causing huge inefficiencies in food utilization, while millions of people go hungry.

Animal-based diets are high in saturated fat, excessive protein and cholesterol, leading to heart disease and stroke, nearly 50% of all deaths in the U.S.

It takes about 2,500 gallons of water to produce a single pound of meat. According to Newsweek, "The water that goes into a 1,000 pound steer could float a destroyer." In contrast, it takes only 25 gallons of water to produce a pound of wheat.

The world's cattle alone (not including other livestock) consume food enough for 8.7 billion people. Over a hundred million of tons of grain go to animals while only 5 million tons of grain could adequately feed the 15 million children throughout the world who starve to death every year. By feeding grain to livestock, we lose 90% of the protein, 96% of the calories, 99% of its carbohydrates, and 100% of the fiber.

A meat-eating American needs 3-1/4 acres of cultivated farm land per year; vegetarians only require 1/6 acre per year.

There are virtually no laws against cruelty to animals raised for food in the U.S.

Meat contains no essential nutrients that cannot be obtained in higher quality directly from plant sources.

Grotesque methods of reproduction are employed on animal farms. One method of animal procreation employs so called "teaserbulls" (cattle) or "sidewinders" (boars) to identify females in heat. Their penises are surgically re-routed to come out of the sides of their bodies so that they cannot reproduce directly. These mutilated, frustrated studs exist only to identify fertile females. The cows or sows are artificially inseminated.

Meat would cost over $35/lb. if the water used by the meat industry were not subsidized by the U.S. government. Livestock production accounts for twice the pollution of industrial sources in the U.S.

Dr. T. Colin Campbell, a key researcher involved with The China Study, says "In the next 10 to 15 years, one of the things you're bound to hear is that animal protein ... is one of the most toxic nutrients of all that can be considered." Risk for disease increases dramatically when even a little animal protein is added to the diet.

The planet's entire petroleum reserves would be exhausted in a just over a decade if the whole world adopted the technology used in the U.S. to produce the standard American meat-centered diet.

Trees are being cut at an alarming rate to clear land for meat production. If tomorrow people in the U.S. switched to vegetarian,, 200 million acres could be returned to forest.

"Redskins" are chickens on the conveyer belt to death which missed not both the brine-filled electrified stunning trough but also the knife that was to cut their throats and bleed their bodies. Their deaths occurred in the scald tank where feathers are loosened before plucking. Piles of them are thrown aside every day.

Chicken feed is routinely laced with hormones and antibiotics to allow agribusiness the efficiency of massive flocks under intensive confinement. Only with massive drugs, a practice begun in the fifties, can such cruel and brutal conditions be maintained. These hormones and antibiotics make their way into those who eat their flesh causing hormonal imbalances and antibiotic resistance.

Meat-centered diets are linked to many kinds of cancer, such as cancer of the colon, breast, cervix, uterus, ovary, prostate, and lung.

U.S. livestock produces 20 times the excrement of the human population.Their waste no longer serves to fertilize pastures a little at a time, since they spend much or all of their lives in factory sheds or feedlots. Wastes are often simply flushed away dangerously raising ammonia and nitrate levels in our drinking water. Going vegetarian helps to clean up our nation's water more than any other single action.

The human digestive system is not designed for meat. A natural carnivore's bowel is relatively short (2-3 times the length of its torso) and smooth inside, a human's bowel is 12 times the length of the torso and deeply twisted and puckered. The carnivore has much stronger digestive acids. In the long convoluted human digestive tract, meat putrifies and becomes toxic to the body.

John Robbins, author of Diet for a New America, says that a dairy cow living in today's modern milk factory "is bred, fed, medicated, inseminated and manipulated to a single purpose -- maximum milk production at minimum cost. She lives with an unnaturally swelled up and sensitive udder, is kept inside a stall her entire life, is milked up to 3 times a day, and is kept pregnant nearly all of the time with her young taken from her almost immediately after birth. "Contented" is the characteristic most often attributed to the cow. However, cows in factories are fed tranquilizers to calm their frazzled nerves."

On a calorie basis, spinach has 14 times the iron of sirloin steak. Animal products are deficient in vitamin C which is needed for iron absorption, .

Male cattle in the beef industry are castrated to make them more docile and to promotes a fattier (more profitable) animal. Anesthetics are seldom used.

The typical egg factory may hold 80,000 hens per warehouse with 4 or 5 layer hens squeezed into a 12" x 18" cage. Poultry producers de-beak their chicks with hot-knife machines to prevent the crazed birds from killing each other in response to their intense confinement.

The National Cancer Research Institute found that women who eat meat daily are almost 4 times more likely to get breast cancer than those who eat little or no meat

At the expense of their own hungry populations, exporters in poor countries produce luxury foods such as meat to sell to rich countries. Meat is much more profitable than subsistence crops of rice, beans and vegetables.

Cattle are responsible for 12% of the methane emissions. Methane contributes to global warming by trapping 25 times more solar heat than carbon dioxide.

Pigs in today's factory farms are often stacked two and three decks high in space just big enough to fit in. They stand on metal or concrete slats which painfully cripple the legs of half of them before slaughter. Their entire lives are lived this way. Pigs have a similarly high intelligence and sensitivity as the family pet dog.

Mother's milk from a nursing woman who eats a diet rich in animal sources is so toxic that if it were to be sold across state lines, it would be subject to confiscation and destruction by the FDA.

Two hundred years ago, American topsoil averaged 21 inches. Today, it's only about 6 inches. Each year an area the size of Connecticut is lost to topsoil erosion. Livestock production is responsible for about 85% of this erosion.

Fish concentrate toxic chemicals. Consumer Reports (Feb., '92) notes that the incidence of unacceptable levels of PCB's and mercury were found in certain species of fish. Ingesting PCB's is considered a primary cause for the sperm count in American men to be 70% of what it was 30 years ago. Half the world's fish catch is fed to cattle, which concentrates the poisons.

Drugged animals in factory sheds are supposed to have their drugs stopped at a certain time before slaughter. Withdrawal schedules are often lax. Troughs of old, drug-laden feed are not removed when withdrawal should begin. Since animals are often fed animal waste and flesh, drug and pesticide residues accumulate.

The common cold, as well as allergies to dust, cats and pollen, are likely to go away when milk is removed from the diet. No other mammal in nature drinks milk after weaning, or drinks the milk of other species. Cows will not even drink cows milk after weaning.

USDA meat inspection today is virtually non-existent with sometimes as few as 3 out of 1,000 carcasses checked. Federal inspectors are not allowed to stop the assembly line if a problem is sighted, they may only complain. Many cancerous carcasses pass inspection.

Cattle grazing destroyed most of the lush ecosystems in North America. Grazing is the primary cause for the loss or endangerment of plant species in the U.S.

The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition and the Food and Nutrition Board recommend eating only 2.5% to 6% of one's calories as protein to satisfy requirements. It's nearly impossible to get below 9% with a vegetarian diet. Typical Americans eat 28% of their calories as animal protein and an additional 12% as non-animal protein. High protein intake is the primary cause of osteoporosis.

About 98% of all milk in the U.S. is produced with factory methods. Today's factory cow is fed dangerous levels of hormones to produce two to three times more milk than normal. After about four years, when the hormones no longer work, the spent cow becomes hamburger. Slaughter ends the agony of mostly solitary, intense confinement, in which our friend has never seen a blade of grass. A cow naturally lives 20 years.

Cattle grazing is subsidized on public lands in the U.S. The market rate is about $6.40 to $9.50 per month per cow, many government permit holders pay less than $2. According to U.S. Congressman Dick Armey of Texas, our nation's "farm cartel" government policy is simply "Welfare to the rich."

Factory-farmed animals have as much as 30 TIMES more saturated fat than yesterday's free-range, pasture-raised animals.

Nearly half then fish tested by Consumers Union were found to be contaminated by bacteria from human or animal feces. The suspected cause is poor sanitation practices.

In the barnyard of the past, a sow gave birth to 6 piglets a year. Today's factory farms are working towards 45! Frankenstein methods include hormone injection for greater fertility, artificial insemination, "embryo transfers" where embryos are surgically removed, and implanted into other sows -- all in the name of greater meat production at reduced cost. Similar methods are employed in the beef industry.

Cow's milk is meant for calves, not humans. An infant's natural protein needs are actually quite low. Human milk contains only 5% of its calories as protein which enables an infant to double in size in 180 days. In contrast, cow's milk is 15% protein by calorie. Newborn calves double in size in only 47 days.

At most stockyards so called "downers" may lie suffering for days until they are dragged by chain to their slaughter. The tragedy is that an animal can legally be kept in agony, sick or with broken bones simply because alive it will fetch a higher price for a rancher.

More antibiotics are used in animal production than for humans. Animal drug sales are in the billions.

Meat industry apologists claim that livestock do not compete for edible food with humans because they live on forage humans cannot eat. In truth, 70% of all the grain produced in the U.S. is fed to livestock.

Today's animals are packed indoors and kept alive with drugs and vitamin injections. The battle against infection and death in the factory farm shed is a constant concern. Misting animals with insecticides has become routine. In the chicken factories, birds are fed chemicals to control flies which are so potent, they stay active even in their droppings, still able to kill larvae.

The great Ogallala Aquifer, which supplies the nation's bread basket with water, is being pumped dry, mostly for growing grain to feed livestock. It spans over 8 midwestern states with an area three times the size of New York State. This natural reservoir from the last Ice Age may be gone in 30 years.

Meat contains about 14 times more pesticides than plant foods; dairy products more than 5-1/2 times.

There are 20 - 30 thousand animal drugs currently in use. Roughly 90% have NOT been approved by the FDA.

The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, a group of 3,000 physicians, introduced the New Four Food Groups: fruit, vegetables, whole grains, and legumes. Meat, poultry, fish, nuts, seeds, and oils are termed "optional" foods, not considered necessary for health.

All natural instincts are restricted in today's pig factories. Driven insane, bored, and frustrated, these naturally intelligent, playful creatures are driven to gnawing and biting on other pig tails and hind ends. A mauled pig may die from an attack and then be eaten by his attackers. Mauled pigs cannot be sold, a definite problem to the producer. In answer? Pigtails are amputated and animals are kept in total darkness except for feeding.

The Bureau of Labor lists poultry processing as one of the most hazardous occupations. Workers often contract diseases from sick animals. The meat packing industry suffers injuries10 times the national average, primarily nerve and tendon damage from repetative motion (up to 8,000 times an hour).

Egg factories all over the country weed out male chicks and dispose of them en masse in plastic bags and barrels where they are crushed and suffocated. A half a million chicks a day are disposed of. They may also be ground up WHILE STILL ALIVE for use as animal feed.

Animals at the top of the food chain absorb many of the toxic chemicals in their diet. Pesticides, insecticides, petrochemicals, hormone injections, antibiotics as well as toxic wastes such as PCB's and mercury in our oceans. Today, more than ever, it is wise to eat low on the food chain. Plant foods are the safest.

A diet vegetarian diet helps prevent diabetes, often relieves the symptoms, and can even eliminate the need insulin treatments.

Detection of salmonella is not required by the USDA. Not a single plant in the country inspects for it. CBS's "60 Minutes" found half of the chickens they randomly purchased to be contaminated.

The male calf born to a dairy cow is taken immediately after birth to a veal factory and locked up, immobile, for his entire life. He is fed a diet without iron or roughage to produce tender milky white meat. He is injected with growth hormones and antibiotics to keep him alive. He is kept in darkness except for feeding. Veal fetches a premium price.

Agricultural engineers discovered that the energy costs of producing poultry, pork and other meats was over10 times that of any plant food.

Nearly all toxic chemical residues in the American diet (95% to 99%) come from animal sources.

To help end the controversy over whether humans are carnivores, consider that it is not common for a person to stalk a wild animal, catch it by sinking claws into its body, bite its neck, and feel comfort in the taste of fresh warm blood and uncooked flesh.

To crank up pork production, piglets may be taken away from their mother soon after birth. They are then provided with a mechanical teat, without which they would die from the emotional loss. The forced weaning allows the sow to end her lactating period, so she can become pregnant again.

The high incidence of constipation hemorrhoids, hiatal hernias, diverticulosis, spastic colon and appendicitis parallels today's widespread high fat, low fiber, meat-centered diets.

Our dwindling water supply is directly tied to meat consumption. Over half of the water in the U.S. irrigates land for livestock feed and fodder.

Considering factory housing, irrigation, trucking, refrigeration, and petrochemical fertilizer, vast amounts of energy, about a gallon of gasoline, is required for every pound of grain-fed beef.

The Allied naval blockade during World War I forced Denmark dramatically into nationwide vegetarianism. The death rate from disease during the period dropped by 34%.

Chicken feathers, guts, and waste water, which normally would be discarded, are routinely "recycled"back to the hen houses as feed. Industry experts believe this unclean slaughtering, processing, and forced cannibalism, leads to the rampant salmonella epidemics in poultry plants. Ignoring true causes, the U.S. government recommends food irradiation to "sanitize" contaminated birds. Food irradiation causes potentially carcinigenic changes to proteins.

Even, though organic farming and natural insect controls are proven, agribusiness continues with pesticides. Pesticides may take hundreds of years to decompose.

In a March, 1984 Time magazine reported on cholesterol and heart disease... "in regions where ... meat is scarce, cardiovascular disease is unknown."

An acre cultivated in spinach yields 26 times more protein than it does for beef.

Human beings have no sharp needle-like teeth to puncture flesh as do carnivores; humans have flat back teeth to grind (plant) food unlike carnivores.

The USDA does not inspect for trichinosis in pork, which must be thoroughly cooked before eating. About 4% of Americans have trichinella worms in their muscles.

Vegetarians live on average about six years longer and are healthier than meat eaters.

Desertification, now affecting 29% of the earth's landmass, is largely due to the demands of livestock production around the world. Meat-eating countries, such as the U.S., drive continued increases due to conversion of land which has been sustainably farmed for centuries being coverted to beef production for export.

European countries have banned nearly all imports of American beef because of the routine feeding of antibiotics to livestock.

Demand for ocean fish contributes to over 200,000 deaths of marine mammals and birds caught in fishing nets every year.

Doctors learn to treat diseases with drugs and surgery. Today's physician has virtually no education on nutrition.

USDA poultry inspectors are expected to inspect about 90 birds per minute on a fast moving conveyor. An impossibility. They are forced to allow unsafe poultry to get the USDA's stamp of approval.

To produce foie gras, duck and geese are force-fed huge quantities of grain three times a day through a feeder tube. This painful process lasts 28 days before slaughter, often causing stomachs sometimes to burst. Diseased livers, which swell to several times normal size by this process, are considered a delicacy which sells for about $12 an ounce. About 8,000 tons are produced worldwide each year.

A vegetarian diet is often a quick cure for ulcerative colitis.

Each pound of feedlot beef can be equated with 35 pounds of eroded topsoil, at an estimated cost of $44 billion a year.

Antibiotics for medical use are becoming ineffective because excessive use of antibiotics, especially in the meat industry, creates super bugs that are resistant to all known antibiotics. It is predicted that we are about to embark upon an era in which antibiotics are useless.

It's easy to become a vegetarian.
Simply do not buy meat or eggs when you go to the grocer or to a restaurant. If you do not buy it, you will not consume it. You will learn how to cook and serve nutritious and delightful vegetarian fare. There are many cookbooks available at your favorite natural food store or bookstore.

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