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Food Health Info Under Threat
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I want to pass on this important request for support in fighting censorship about health matters that affect you. I want any readers in the European Union to support the efforts of the Alliance for Natural Health. This is a critical free speech and freedom of access to information issue concerning your health and what you can find out about food and how it affects your health. If you care about freedom of speech, and if you feel that it should be legal and reasonable for companies to be able to publish plausible basic information about health please take action and support this campaign to stop the EU commissars once again interfering where it is not needed. They have already stopped us accessing certain herbs that had been used for centuries for health and nutritional benefits and now they want to restrict how you can describe the benefits of healthy foods.
CLICK ON THE ALLIANCE FOR NATIONAL HEALTH:
DEFEND FREE SPEECH IN FOOD HEALTH INFORMATION
In the 10 years of our history campaigning on natural health issues in Europe, never before have a few minutes of your time had the potential to cause such a dramatic effect on our ability to use natural foods and ingredients to manage our own health!
We’re asking you simply to write to your relevant MEPs. Yes, many of you won’t know who they are, but links on the campaign pages we’ve produced will enable you to find them quickly.
Find out how and why this matter is important via our campaign pages, which are currently available English French and German
If we do nothing, we will be plunged into a world where the vast majority of statements that point to beneficial effects of foods and natural health products will have to be removed. In this more or less health claims-free environment, people will find it much more difficult to choose healthy foods, and companies with huge advertising budgets will do better simply because they can give their products more exposure.
None of us want a situation where misleading claims, or claims with no supporting evidence, are allowed. What we want is a fair environment, which reflects the fact that evidence for claims about the health benefits of foods and food ingredients isn’t back and white. Neither can such evidence rely exclusively on the same kind of clinical trials used for pharmaceutical drugs.
We’ve launched the campaign today, as you’ll see below. Now, we’re just asking that European citizens use their democratic right and write to their MEPs, regardless of political party. This is quite simply a numbers game, so it’s important to write to all MEPs that are in your regional constituency. Getting the European Parliament to block a piece of European legislation is not easy, and in fact it’s only happened once before: when approval of the meat glue thrombin was stopped.
But if we don’t try, it will be us who will have to tell future generations that we sat back and let the ban happen.
Why all this weird suppression of information?
Isn’t freedom of speech a basic tenet of the EU?
Most of you will not be shocked to learn that it all comes down to money for the big boys. In other words big corporations are the drivers
The real motivation behind the EU’s so-called ‘consumer protection’ laws is to create a harmonised EU-wide regime that only benefits the biggest players – in this case Big Food, and even Big Pharma. The latter is increasingly getting in on the act.
A reminder that Big Food acts as the prime mover is the fact that its biggest trade association, FoodDrinkEurope, has been an ardent supporter of the regime from the outset. We have consistently opposed this position. Strangely, however, while some of the other trade associations were also long-time opponents of the health claims list, now that we’re at the eleventh hour, they have decided not to support a veto.
And at the end of the day, it’s not necessary
Every EU “Member State”* already has its own legal mechanisms to stop false, dubious or unsubstantiated advertising. But this EU law preventing virtually any health claim about any food or food supplement will make them redundant.
* Incidentally, do you remember when Euriopean “”Member States were still known as “European countries”. We are not sure when the UK and other “member states” ceased to be independant countries, but apparently this has now ocurred in the People’s Undemocratic Republic of Europe. Anyway, we digress.
European citizens – please write to your MEP urgently
Click on Campaign Pages and Find Out How To Write To Or Email Your MEP’s.
Please don’t leave it to others to do that which you can’t be bothered to do if you care about your right to take the supplements of your choice, and your right to be given information about foods and the health benefits of foods freely and how you want to be informed.
Don’t sit on the fence this time. Stand up for your rights against the unelected busy bodies trying to control your life. Thank you.
Gout Gone!!
The recent attack seems to be in the past and maybe it was just a wake up call – a warning to have a look at my diet before anything more serious happened. Perhaps we should all be more aware of our body’s needs and listen to our body more. Don’t ignore a pain or something that is different about your health. Whether it is like me a mild attack of gout or something else (headache, constipation, muscle ache or joint pain) , things that are not an everyday event and should be looked at and resolved before they develop into something more serious. As far as I can tell simply making sure I drink alkaline water has been enough to stop the gout. I stopped some gout promoting foods (liver) and sure my diet was more alkaline but in general have gone back to my same eating habits, except for the water. I did not realise until I had to look closer that a lot of bottled water is quite acidic. In fact the bottle we have in the house at the moment has a ph of 5.5! No wonder I was getting gout. Thank goodness for alkaline water drops. Minor dietary changes may also be all that is necessary to stop other problems you may have before they escalate.
As for gout, like other health problems the more you look into the information available on a subject the more confusing it appears. Gout was said to be caused by too much red meat, especially offal and rich heavy wines. But not necessarily. Sugar could be a hidden cause, and various studies seem to point to fructose and the high fructose corn syrup found in many processed foods as being the culprit.
This still doesn’t solve my reason for getting an attack of gout. I had stopped my occasional glass of wine and the liver (once a week) but once recovered and after 3 or 4 weeks re-introduced both and have no relapse. I don’t take sugar, so the mystery continues except for the bottled water which I now make sure has a good alkaline level.
Gout notwithstanding, sugar and fructose are a big problem in todays foods, especially processed and junk foods which also contain other chemicals, additives etc.
We are then back to making sure we have a healthy diet with a wide variety of fruit and vegetables, whole grains, nuts and seeds, beans, meat from organic grass fed sources and oily fish such as sardines, herring and salmon. Avoiding all packaged foods, and high sugar content foods is best. If the food comes in a packet and has a list of ingredients (especially ones you don’t understand) avoid it.
Like everything else in life, diet is a balance whether it is ph balance, nutrition balance or whatever. I don’t say stop eating liver if it does not appear to harm you and you like the occasional treat but it is acidic so make sure you also eat high alkaline vegetables with it to balance the meal. Anyway so far so good and I don’t want a repeat of the pain from gout so will continue to watch what my body tells me it needs.
