Is Wizard101 A Kid Safe Game?

Why Let My Kids Play?

Wizard101 is interactive, social entertainment… and fun for the whole family! 

Wizard101 is a multi-player adventure game designed to be easy-to-learn and fun for kids and adults of all ages. And because the game is designed to encourage social activity and interaction among the players, it’s a great form of entertainment for families. If you have always wondered what types of video games your kids like to play, here’s your chance to find out…and enjoy it!


Wizard101 can be a reward! 

Video games can be a lot of fun, and many parents worry their kids will play the games too much. If your kids really like Wizard101 (and we think they will), consider using time in Wizard101 as a reward for doing homework, completing chores, or participating in physical exercise. We think video games are great fun, but they should never be a substitute for the important things in life.


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Try the Game for Yourself
We encourage all our parents to know what their kids are doing online, so we invite you to try Wizard101 for yourself before you make the decision about letting your child play.
It's free, and you might find you're having fun too!



Internet Safety

KingsIsle Entertainment has developed Wizard101 to be an exciting and fun online experience for people of all ages. We believe that an important part of delivering online entertainment is to provide a safe environment for all players, and that’s a responsibility we take seriously. 

To that end, we’ve implemented features in the game that are specifically designed for player safety.



Everyone 10+
The Entertainment Software Rating Board has given Wizard101 a Rating of "E10+". 

For more information about this rating, please visit the ESRB Ratings Guide.

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The Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) assigns computer and video game content ratings, enforces industry-adopted advertising guidelines and helps ensure responsible online privacy practices for the interactive entertainment software industry. Online Interactions Not Rated by the ESRB 

ESRB ratings are designed to provide concise and impartial information about the content in computer and video games so consumers, especially parents, can make an informed purchase decision.

An Important Note

While developing Wizard101, we realized the style and content of the game would appeal to all ages. As a result of our young audience, we decided to incorporate safeguards that make online play a generally safe and positive experience (especially when dealing with other players). 

Below, you can read about some of the features and functions we have placed in the game in order to create a safe environment. By creating a parent account, you are able to turn these features on or off and determine the acceptable level of safety for your children.

Menu Chat As shown above, Wizard101 features a safe Menu Chat system that offers a wide range of pre-selected phrases, greetings and emotions that give players flexibility with in-game communication while keeping exchanges safe and family-friendly.

Pre-Generated Player Names As shown above, all player names are selected from pre-configured lists that allow a player to choose a name from thousands of potential combinations. A player can choose a name that reflects his/her individuality but not one that is inappropriate or reveals too much personal information.

Parental Controls In the "My Accounts" account management settings we have included Parental Controls which allow the parent to set a password that only you know, which restricts access to your credit card information. These Parental Controls also allow you to manage your child's account settings such as the ability to chat with other players. We encourage all parents to enable the Parental Control Password as it will prevent your child from making purchases without your knowledge.

Moderated Message Boards Our message boards have been designed to allow players to exchange game information and experiences, ask questions about the game, and generally socialize with other players. To ensure all interactions are safe, we have a team of moderators overseeing all message board activity. They review, edit, and sometimes delete inappropriate messages so the message board discussions stay safe and on track. Our message board review system was designed to filter inappropriate language, topics, and players’ personal information before messages are posted. We will remain diligent in these efforts to ensure the message boards remain constructive, fun, and safe for players of all ages.

To learn more about keeping your child safe online, here is a list of articles and websites that will encourage discussion and provide more tips and information.

1. Children Online
2. FBI's Parent's Guide to Internet Safety
3. FTC's OnGuard Online
4. Get Safe Online
5. FEMA for Kids
6. Google Tips for Online Safety
7. Connect Safely

There's also an online consciousness contract that you and your family can sign to help with awareness and behaviors online. This contract is located at The Parent / Child Digital Consciousness Contract
https://www.wizard101.com/game/kid-safe-game

More Veterinary Nutritionists Endorse Grain-Based Dog Food

By Dr. Becker

Recently I wrote about a veterinary nutritionist who was promoting gluten and grains in dog food in an interview with an industry publication. I was frankly stunned that an expert in animal nutrition would encourage pet owners to offer food containing ingredients dogs and cats have no biological requirement for. I was in no way trying to offend this nutritionist or any others in the field, however, taking a pro-gluten stance regarding food for carnivorous pets is shocking to me.

Around the same time, I ran across another, similar article titled "Nutritionists Offer Up Pet Food Talking Points for Vets."

This is a curious headline.

Why does your veterinarian need pet food "talking points?" So he or she has a ready argument for pet owners concerned with the quality of nutrition provided by commercial pet food? The article title seems to support my suspicion that major pet food companies could be behind this sudden rush of information coming down the pike from board-certified veterinary nutritionists.

There's much in the article to disagree with – too much, in fact, to cover here – so I'll focus on just a few areas.

Diet-Related Health Problems Often Take Years to Develop

The first paragraph of the article can't really be argued with:

"When it comes to pet food, sometimes the patient is the best evidence of nutritional quality, experts say. Beyond the animal's response to the food, it's also a smart bet to go beyond the advertising and find out something about the company that makes it."

I couldn't agree more with this statement, but I must add something very important to the discussion. It's not enough to look just at an animal's immediate response to a particular diet. We must look at his response over a period of years … even a lifetime.

Obviously, a pet that begins vomiting or develops explosive diarrhea upon starting a new food could be responding poorly to the food. But for most dogs and cats, there is no sudden, extreme negative reaction to the commercial diet they are fed. It often takes years of low quality, highly processed food, or an unbalanced homemade diet before a pet's organs start to fail.

And then there's the problem of not connecting the dots when an animal develops health problems seemingly unrelated to digestion, for example, skin allergies. Poor coat condition and itchy, dry, flaky skin is often related to a diet deficient in omega-3 essential fatty acids and micronutrients, but most pet parents and vets don't make the connection.

So there are a lot of nutrition-related health problems that aren't treated as such when they crop up. In addition, it can take several years for more serious symptoms of low-grade, species-inappropriate or unbalanced nutrition to appear.

Your pet's body is resilient. Her organs will attempt to compensate when her body isn't receiving the type of nutrition nature designed her to eat. So for a number of years, it can appear as though all is well on the outside, while things are slowly deteriorating on the inside. Those overworked organs can't be counted on indefinitely – they will eventually wear out.

It's no coincidence that the number of cats with feline lower urinary tract disease (FLUTD) and renal failure has skyrocketed since the introduction of dry pet food. This is the worst possible diet for kitties, but since it can take several years for FLUTD or full-blown kidney disease to develop, poor nutrition is rarely considered a contributing factor.

Another veterinary nutritionist interviewed for the article recommends pet owners look for foods that have been through AAFCO feeding trials. While I'm grateful that AAFCO standards exist, using the agency's feeding trials as a stamp of approval for the quality of a particular type of pet food is shortsighted.

The protocol for these tests is a six-month feeding trial involving as few as eight test subjects, and the goal is only to determine whether a formula can sustain life in test participants. Only six of the eight animals need to finish the trial, and if weight and certain blood tests are normal, the food is deemed complete and balanced.

Needless to say, six pets still alive at the end of six months is hardly proof that a pet food formula is biologically appropriate for a lifetime. These trials are not a good measure of a food's ability to cause nutritional deficiencies or overdoses over a longer period, nor can they demonstrate the food's impact on longevity, reproduction or multi-generational health.

"Go beyond the advertising."

"… and find out something about the company that makes it."

This is another piece of advice from the article I can agree with. Some of the ads developed by marketers for the major pet food companies are truly inspired. It's disturbing -- once you know the difference between excellent and poor quality pet nutrition -- to realize many of these absolutely gorgeous advertisements are selling some of the poorest quality commercial pet food on the market.

Unfortunately, the veterinary nutritionists interviewed for the article seem to think pet owners should instead focus on the size of the pet food company as assurance of the quality of food they produce. According to Dr. Lisa Weeth, a clinical nutritionist:

"The larger pet food manufacturing companies like Royal Canin, Hill's Pet Nutrition, Nestlé Purina and Iams PetCare will control all aspects of development, manufacturing and sales, so there is more company oversight of the pet food process."

There may be better oversight of the manufacturing process at these companies than others, but I have yet to come across one of their pet food formulas I consider to be made with acceptable quality ingredients or that contains biologically appropriate nutrition for dogs or cats. I don't feed or sell this food at Natural Pet (my clinic), I don't feed it to my own pets, and I don't recommend it to clients or any pet owner.

Dr. Weeth continues:

"These are also the companies that are investing in research that promotes veterinary medicine and veterinary nutrition. They are pushing the bounds of what we know about improving health and treating disease through diets."

It's certainly true these mammoth organizations have the money to fund pet nutrition research. But what about the potential forconflict of interest? How can a company that sells pet food be depended on to publish research that might not support the growth of its products?

As for "treating disease through diets" … the goal should be preventing disease through biologically appropriate nutrition that replicates the animal's natural diet. In my opinion, most commercial pet foods on the market today create or contribute to the diseases so many pets suffer from.

Promoting Companies That Make Therapeutic and Grain-Based Pet Foods

The article goes on to promote the "fantastic" quality control used in the production of therapeutic pet diets, and suggests pet owners should buy over-the-counter pet foods made by the same companies that produce therapeutic pet diets.

In my experience, most therapeutic or "prescription" diets for pets contain biologically inappropriate, substandard (not human grade) ingredients I would never recommend for a healthy pet, much less a sick one. I think it's safe to assume the over-the-counter formulas made by these same companies are of the same quality (but lack the additives that set them apart as being "prescription"), and I certainly wouldn't recommend them, either.

If your pet suffers from a medical condition requiring a specialized diet, I recommend you take complete control over the ingredient quality by making your own, human grade, nutritionally balanced pet food, custom formulated especially for your pet.

Another veterinary nutritionist interviewed for the article has a problem with the marketing-related claims smaller pet food companies make against the bigger brands. Dr. Cailin Heinze believes these claims "… are usually a mixture of truth and made up 'facts'."  She goes on to say:

"If it says a grain-free diet will help a dog with allergies, that would be a company I would be suspicious of, as only a dog that has an allergy to a specific grain would improve on a grain-free diet, and grain allergies are quite rare."

I always caution pet owners not to blindly trust pet food marketing claims no matter who makes them. But contrary to what Dr. Heinze seems to be saying here, I find the vast majority of dogs do indeed improve on grain-free diets. That's because dogs have no biological requirement for grain. The only grain wild canines get in their natural diet comes predigested in the stomach contents of prey animals.

Dogs living in the wild hunt, kill and eat prey animals. They don't graze on an abundance of grasses or other sources of grain like cows or horses do. Dogs aren't herbivores. They aren't omnivores. They are carnivores, of the Order Carnivora – meat eaters.

And most pet foods containing grain contain loads of it. In fact, various forms of grain are usually the primary ingredients in those diets, because grain is plentiful and cheap. Grain-based pet foods are detrimental to the health of dogs and are even worse for cats – again, because as carnivores, dogs and cats aren't designed by nature to process food containing grain.

"Stay with large, popular brands."

This advice comes from yet another veterinary nutritionist interviewed for the article. According to Dr. Jennifer Larsen, "If pet owners can stay with large, popular brands that have a lot of turnover, and many, many dogs have been eating the food for years and years, they should be OK."

Again, I must point out that the length of time a food has been on the market or the fact that it sells well is not proof of ingredient quality or biological appropriateness. It's only proof that compared to contaminated or spoiled pet food, it's safe to feed.

And by the time a middle-aged or older pet shows up at a veterinarian's office with organ failure or other long-standing health problems, unfortunately, no connection will be made to her history of surviving on low-quality processed pet food.

Dr. Larsen adds:

"You shouldn't make people feel guilty about buying a national brand of very popular food, because not only have a lot of those companies done a lot of research and development, but the food is also market-tested successfully on thousands and thousands of animals."

"Market-tested successfully" in this case means the food doesn't cause immediate illness or death in pets who eat it. It does not mean it is optimally healthy nutrition for dogs or cats.

Aside from the fact that I passionately disagree with much of what the board-certified veterinary nutritionists interviewed for theVeterinary Practice News article have to say, I can't help but notice there seems to be an obvious objective here to endorse the reputations and products of some of the world's largest pet food manufacturers.

My advice, as always… learn all you can about appropriate dog and cat nutrition so you can just say no to poor quality pet food no matter who is promoting it.

http://healthypets.mercola.com/sites/healthypets/archive/2012/12/05/nutritionists-promote-pet-food-brands.aspx?e_cid=20121205_PetsNL_art_1 

Water Fluoridation: 6 Facts You Need To Know

Anti-Fluoride Group Submits More than 35,000 Signatures to Portland in ‘Confident’ Bid to Force Vote

By Dr. Mercola

In a country where fluoride is added to 70 percent of U.S. public drinking water supplies to supposedly aid in the prevention of cavities, Portland, Oregon stands out from the crowd.

Portland is the largest city in the United States that has yet to add fluoride to its water supply, a stance that was set to change thanks to a unanimous city council vote in September 2012.

However, Portland residents were not content to sit still while a proven neurotoxin was added to their drinking water … so, in a move that may inspire other cities around the U.S. to follow suit, they did something about it.

Resident Signatures Set to Block Portland's Upcoming Fluoride Plan

In Portland, referendums that challenge a City Council ordinance are granted if supporters collect signatures from at least 6 percent of registered voters, which must be done in just 30 days. To put a halt to the fluoride plan, this meant collecting 19,858 valid signatures by the deadline.

Clean Water Portland, which opposes the water fluoridation plan, succeeded in collecting more than 43,000 signatures – and they did it a day ahead of schedule.

Assuming the signatures are valid, plans to fluoridate Portland's drinking water will stop until the City Council either decides to repeal the ordinance or, more likely, add the potential ordinance to an upcoming ballot (most likely in May 2014) to let the voters decide.

Portland Voters Will Now Have a Say in What's in Their Water …

What makes Clean Water Portland's accomplishment of securing the water fluoridation issue a spot on the ballot card even more important is the undemocratic process the Portland City Council used to establish the fluoride plan in the first place.

It received nationwide media coverage, and for good reason. So far, citizens had already voted 'no' on water fluoridation for Portland on three separate occasions, clearly demonstrating the public will on this subject. Most recently, more than 275 residents testified at the public hearing, according to The New York Times,¹ with more than 60 percent of them speaking out against the practice. The pro-fluoride lobby were unfairly given a full hour to present their case before the council, while those in opposition were given no time.

Meanwhile, while Portland City Council members met with fluoride lobbyists on multiple occasions in the months leading up to the plan, they posted only one meeting on public calendars, even though they’re required by law to publically post any activities related to city business.²

The meetings must have paid off for the fluoride lobbyists, because in the end, on September 12, the council stuck to their announced game plan and approved the plan to add fluoride to Portland's water supplies by March 2014, despite the strong opposition from residents, who asked for a referendum. Their message: "Public Water, Public Vote."

Fortunately, Clean Water Portland was successful in collecting signatures to ensure this public vote takes place, and in the meantime will force an immediate freeze on Portland's plan to fluoridate their citizens.

Why are So Many in Portland Adamant About Keeping Fluoride Out of Their Water?

That's a very good question, and if you're new to the fluoride issue you may have simply heard that it's "good for your teeth" – but not much else. But even promoters of fluoridation now admit that fluoride's predominant action is topical, on the surface of the tooth (although even this is now being questioned), and not from inside your body – so why are so many Americans still being forced to swallow it when swallowing fluoride provides little or no benefit to your teeth?

Fluoride compounds like fluorosilicic acid are toxic industrial waste products, which can also be contaminated with lead, arsenic, radionucleotides, aluminum and other industrial contaminants. There are so many scientific studies showing the direct, toxic effects of fluoride on your body, it's truly remarkable that it's NOT considered a scientific consensus by now.

For example, 34 different studies³ support the contention that water fluoridation lowers IQ in children. Other studies have focused on its impact on thyroid, bones and joints, and your brain, while many refuse to consider the skyrocketing increase of cognitive decline in adults (Alzheimer's and various dementia's), and behavioral issues in children (ADD, ADHD, depression and learning disabilities of all kinds) and the possible link to fluoride. In reality, studies have shown that fluoride toxicity can lead to a wide variety of health problems, including:

Increased lead absorption	Disrupts synthesis of collagen	Hyperactivity and/or lethargy	Muscle disorders
Thyroid disease	Arthritis	Dementia	Bone fractures
Lowered thyroid function	Bone cancer (osteosarcoma)	Inactivates 62 enzymes and inhibits more than 100	Inhibited formation of antibodies
Genetic damage and cell death	Increased tumor and cancer rate	Disrupted immune system	Damaged sperm and increased infertility

And then there is the central issue of FREEDOM. Fluoride is not a nutrient. The fluoride put into drinking water is not a prescription drug, but an industrial waste product. However, it is put into the water as a "drug" to help oral health, and it is donewithout the consent of those receiving it. Even if you accepted the premise that it works systemically, there is no justification to force it on people under the guise of slightly lowering tooth decay, as everyone has the option of using it topically as a toothpaste if they so choose.

Water Fluoridation 101: Did You Know …. ?

The infographic below sums up some of the most important facts you should know about fluoride in drinking water.

Did You Know Water Fluoridation is Dangerous to the Environment?

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently announced that three companies would be working to ensure that toxic waste from a nearly 3-acre industrial complex in West Virginia would not leak out and contaminate surrounding soil and groundwater. The site, which sits about 900 feet from the Ohio River, was originally part of a Kaiser Aluminum plant, and now is loaded with cyanide and fluoride toxic waste. You see, fluoride is classified as a hazardous waste product by the EPA … so how did it come to be added to your drinking water?

Very shrewdly… Water fluoridation could easily qualify as one of the grandest public health frauds and toxic cover-ups in U.S. history. Now declassified files of the Manhattan Project and the Atomic Energy Commission show that the toxicology department at the University of Rochester -- which was under the direction of Harold Hodge -- was asked to produce medical information about fluoride that could help defend the government against lawsuits were they to be charged with fluoride pollution.

It is now clear that if water fluoridation were declared harmful to human health, the U.S. nuclear bomb program, as well as many other fluoride-polluting industries such as aluminum plants and fertilizer manufacturers, would have been left open to massive litigation.

The plan?

Declare fluoride not only safe, but beneficial, and sell the troublesome waste to municipalities across the US…

You might be surprised to learn that Kaiser Aluminum, which owned the original West Virginia plant site that is now a hazardous waste site, is among the fluoride-polluting industry-heavyweights that helped fund research for the Kettering report on the health benefits of fluoride -- a massive bibliography of abstracts on the soundness of communal water fluoridation, and fluoride's (beneficial) role in public health.

But this “healthful” fluoride is a hazardous waste product that is so toxic it can’t legally be put in oceans, rivers or lakes, or added to soil – but it can be sold to be added to commercial water supplies! As the Fluoride Action Network reports:⁴

“Fluoride is a major industrial pollutant, one which has caused widespread damage to fluoride-exposed workers and downwind communities. During the Cold War, fluoride was responsible for more litigation against U.S. industry than all other air pollutants combined.

Although the development of modern pollution control technology has resulted in significant reductions in fluoride emissions, millions of workers around the world remain at risk for respiratory, neurological, and bone diseases from fluoride exposure, and downwind communities remain at risk in countries with weak environmental regulation.”

The Water Fluoridation Debate is Heating Up Across the Globe

The fluoride debate has recently ignited in Canada and New Zealand as well as other areas around the United States.

• New Zealand: In June last year, the Ruapehu-Taumarunui District Council confirmed their decision to stop fluoridating their water. The town has fluoridated their water supplies for the past 30 years, and their decision came after they had heard from Dr. Paul Connett (recognized worldwide as a leader in the movement to eliminate fluoride from the municipal water supplies, and I'm pleased to be working with him to achieve this goal) and consulted proponents for their views.
  Around the same time, the Upper Hutt City council also resolved to lobby Wellington Regional to stop fluoridation, and the council in New Plymouth voted to end their water fluoridation program.
• Canada: City councilors in Cornwall, Canada recently heard from local citizens who want the city to quit putting fluoride in their drinking water, and pointed out that the fluoride studied by health agencies is different form what is actually used in drinking water.
  The issue of what kind of fluoride is actually added to your water is a point of major importance, as many people still do not realize that when scientists study fluoride's toxicity to humans, they study pharmaceutical grade fluoride (same stuff used in antidepressant drugs), but NOT the fluoride compounds actually used for water fluoridation, which include the far more toxic waste materials generated from the fertilizer industry. So, in essence, their already detrimental results may in fact be FAR GREATER than currently perceived.
• Phoenix, Arizona: Citizens in Phoenix, Arizona are also stepping up to the plate on this issue and were recently told a council subcommittee would finally, after 23 years, accept expert testimony on water fluoridation.
• Florida: Both the Greater Pine Island Water Association, and The Ormond Beach City Commission, will be voting on whether to continue on with water fluoridation. In the latter case, a referendum will be added for the first time since 1957 so that voters can decide whether they want fluoridated water.

Momentum is Growing: Four More Communities are Now Fluoride-Free

Since 2010, more than 70 U.S. communities have voted to end water fluoridation. Most recently added to this list are:⁵

1. O’Fallon, Missouri: This town of 80,000 has decided to discontinue water fluoridation after a citizen activist brought its dangers to the attention of city employees. The change is not only slated to save the city $18,000 a year, it’s also expected to “reduce the hazard for the operators in that they do not have to handle the dangerous chemical on a regular basis.”
2. Rosetown, Saskatchewan: After a fluoride feed-pump broke, this small community of 2,300 decided not to continue water fluoridation in the future.
3. Lake View, Iowa: The city council voted to discontinue fluoridation based on its high cost and lack of positive economic benefit.
4. Cassadaga, New York: Citizen opposition influenced Village Board members to vote to reject water fluoridation. In a town survey, 78 percent of water customers said they opposed the practice.

Do You Agree that Fluoride Use Should be a Choice, Not a Mandate?

The research speaks for itself that fluoride should not be ingested. At least when it comes to topical application, you have a choice. You can easily buy fluoride-free toothpaste and mouthwash, if you so choose. But you're stuck with whatever your community puts in the water, and it's very difficult to filter out of your water once it's added. Plus, many do not have the resources or the knowledge to do so.

The only real solution is to stop the archaic practice of water fluoridation in the first place. Fortunately, the Fluoride Action Network⁶ (FAN) has a game plan to END water fluoridation in both Canada and the United States.

I urge you to join the anti-fluoride movement in Canada and United States by contacting the representative for your area below.

Contact Information for Canadian Communities:

1. If you live in Ontario, Canada, please join the ongoing effort by contacting Diane Sprules at diane.sprules@cogeco.ca.
2. The point-of-contact for Toronto, Canada is Aliss Terpstra. You may email her at aliss@nutrimom.ca.

Contact Information for American Communities:

We're also going to address three U.S. communities: Portland, Wichita, and Phoenix:

1. Portland, Oregon: If you live in the Portland area, please contact FAN's Oregon point person, Kimberly Kaminski. You can email her at kim@safewateroregon.org. Portland residents will be battling a very well financed campaign by the ADA, Delta Dental and the PEW Charitable Trust. Please consider making a donation to Oregon Citizens for Safe Drinking Water.
2. Witchita, Kansas: The pro-fluoride lobby has also targeted Wichita for forced fluoridation. If you live in Kansas and would like to help protect the safety of the city's drinking water, please contact Fluoride Free Kansas atfluoridefreekansas.org/contact-us
3. Phoenix, Arizona -- The city council is reassessing their fluoridation program. The issue was raised by Councilman Tom Simplot and local fluoride-free campaigners. The city currently spends more than $500,000 annually on fluoridation, and joins only nine other Arizona communities in fluoridating their water. If you live in the Phoenix area and would like to get involved, please contact FAN's Phoenix coordinator.

reference
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/11/29/anti-water-fluoridation-plan.aspx?e_cid=20121209_SNL_MS_1 

How the Sugar Industry Hoodwinked You about the Dangers of Sugar, Using Big Tobacco Tactics

Big Sugar details the not so sweet history of the sugar industry, from its early days of slave labor, to modern times with its increasingly detrimental environmental effects and political manipulation aimed at protecting its financial interests at any cost.

Visit the Mercola Video Library

By Dr. Mercola

When sugar consumption declined 12 percent in two years because people were beginning to look at sugar as fattening, and a potential cause of heart disease and diabetes, the sugar industry crafted a mammoth advertising campaign to bankroll scientific papers and hire lobbyists to ensure sugar would not be subject to legislative restriction.

Their decades-long effort is why the USDA's dietary guidelines only speak of sugar in vague generalities, and why a top sugar-industry consultant heads the FDA's sugar review panel, Mother Jones Magazine says.¹

The featured article, co-authored by Gary Taubes and Cristin Kearns Couzens, exposes many dirty little secrets the sugar industry would rather you not know, so I recommend reading it in its entirety.²

"The story of sugar, as [President of the Sugar Association, John] Tatem told it, was one of a harmless product under attack by 'opportunists dedicated to exploiting the consuming public,'" they write.

"Over the subsequent decades, it would be transformed from what the New York Times in 1977 had deemed 'a villain in disguise' into a nutrient so seemingly innocuous that even the American Heart Association and the American Diabetes Association approved it as part of a healthy diet.

Research on the suspected links between sugar and chronic disease largely ground to a halt by the late 1980s, and scientists came to view such pursuits as a career dead end. So effective were the Sugar Association's efforts that, to this day, no consensus exists about sugar's potential dangers."

However, to assume that a lack of official consensus about its potential dangers equates to a lack of knowledge about the health impact of sugar would be a serious mistake. Through the groundbreaking work of researchers and respected medical professionals such as Dr. Richard Johnson and Dr. Robert Lustig, we are well aware of the serious health impacts of sugar, especially fructose.

Excess Sugar is the Best Way to Increase Your Body Fat

Since 1970, obesity rates in the United States have more than doubled and diabetes has tripled. Health officials are still fond of blaming increasing obesity rates on over-eating and under-exercising, which has the unfortunate effect of preventing any real progress, as the true causes remain ignored... In order to make any appreciable dent in the current trend, severe sugar and fructose restriction is an absolute must.

Granted, other food-related culprits such as genetically engineered grains have also been implicated, as they appear to adversely alter your body composition. Ditto for artificial sweeteners. Still, excessive consumption of fructose — primarily in the form of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), which is added to virtually all processed foods sold today — is likely the mostexacerbating factor.

Why You Cannot Look to Industry for Answers

According to the featured article³, the reason why Americans are still largely clueless about the overwhelmingly negative impact sugar has on their health is due to Big Sugar's use of Big Tobacco-style tactics, which include manipulating the public and government agencies with slick propaganda that has virtually no basis in real science, and carefully covering up the reality of harm.

Amazingly, at one point during the mid-1950's, the Sugar Association even launched a successful PR campaign to sell sugar as a "sensible new approach to weight control."⁴ Yes, believe it or not, they were marketing sugar as a weight loss tool — just likeartificial sweeteners are doing today, despite the fact that study after study keeps coming to the befuddling conclusion that artificial sweeteners make subjects gain MORE weight than regular sugar...

"...[A] growing body of research suggests that sugar and its nearly chemically identical cousin, HFCS, may very well cause diseases that kill hundreds of thousands of Americans every year, and that these chronic conditions would be far less prevalent if we significantly dialed back our consumption of added sugars," Taubes and Couzens write.

Indeed, according to some estimates the US health system spends about $150 billion a year on sugar-related diseases.⁵ With all this evidence of harm, how does the sugar industry get away scot free, time and time again? It's actually easier than you might think. All that is required is to maintain that "the science is inconclusive," no matter how clear or well executed it is. As detailed in the featured article:

"'In confronting our critics,' Tatem explained to his board of directors back in 1976, 'we try never to lose sight of the fact that no confirmed scientific evidence links sugar to the death-dealing diseases. This crucial point is the lifeblood of the association.'"

Scientific fraud and/or the misuse of science to further a preconceived commercial agenda is so rampant today that it can be quite tricky to determine what's what. One key factor you'd be wise to consider is who paid for the study? It's well-established that the source of funding can significantly skew research results, as those who pay generally want the research to be of benefit to them, one way or another. Truly independent research that is not funded or executed by any person or group with a financial stake or interest in the results is, generally speaking, the most trustworthy. Although sometimes you may have to do some sleuthing to determine whether the research might have hidden ties or agendas.

The featured article offers a perfect example of this:

"...via the Sugar Association proper, they [American sugar companies] would spend roughly $655,000 between 1975 and 1980 on 17 studies designed, as internal documents put it, 'to maintain research as a main prop of the industry's defense.'

Each proposal was vetted by a panel of industry-friendly scientists and a second committee staffed by representatives from sugar companies and 'contributing research members' such as Coca-Cola, Hershey's, General Mills, and Nabisco.Most of the cash was awarded to researchers whose studies seemed explicitly designed to exonerate sugar. One even proposed to explore whether sugar could be shown to boost serotonin levels in rats' brains, and thus 'prove of therapeutic value, as in the relief of depression,' an internal document noted.

...In short, rather than do definitive research to learn the truth about its product, good or bad, the association stuck to a PR scheme designed to 'establish with the broadest possible audience — virtually everyone is a consumer — the safety of sugar as a food.' One of its first acts was to establish a Food & Nutrition Advisory Council consisting of a half-dozen physicians and two dentists willing to defend sugar's place in a healthy diet..."

HFCS Lawsuit Gets Sticky

The featured article continues detailing how the sugar industry has managed to undermine both science and common sense in its scheme to keep business rolling. Again, it's an enlightening read. The same, however, cannot be said for a related news piece reported by foodnavigator.com.

An ongoing legal dispute between the sugar industry and the corn refiners industry is becoming increasingly entertaining, as both sides accuse the other of hypocrisy... According to Food Navigator:⁶

"In court documents filed in LA... leading sugar refiners asked a judge to dismiss a counter-claim filed in September by the corn refiners alleging that the sugar industry has been engaged in a 'systematic campaign' to vilify HFCS. "

While the corn industry accuses the sugar industry of publishing "literally false" articles on its website, the Sugar Association defends its publications, stating they're protected under the First Amendment as free speech. The Corn Refiners Association (CRA) struck back saying the Sugar Association was patently hypocritical in its sudden invocation of free speech, "given how hard they have tried to censor our consumer education program," president of the Corn Refiners Association Audrae Erickson told Food Navigator.

Adam Fox, a partner of the law firm representing the Sugar Association, in turn replied that this was "a perfect example of the pot calling the kettle black." It goes back and forth like this a few more times, and at no point is anyone made any wiser about the dangers of the falsehoods spread by BOTH industries.

Reducing Sugar and Fructose Consumption is KEY for Stemming Rising Obesity Rates

That something in our diet and way of life is terribly wrong can clearly be seen in our skyrocketing obesity statistics, and that "something" is sugar — in particular fructose in the form of HFCS, found in virtually every single processed food and beverage on the market. Foods you would never suspect to contain sugar can contain great amounts of it, including infant formula and even "designer" water!

Two out of three people in the U.S. are overweight and one out of three is obese, and the rest of the world is not far behind. Dr. Richard Johnson's new book The Fat Switch presents groundbreaking new research showing that eating too much and exercising too little are NOT the primary culprits responsible for out of control weight gain, and why so many people find it so difficult to shed those excess pounds.

His research shows that metabolic syndrome (characterized by central obesity or increased waist circumference, high blood pressure, and insulin resistance) is actually a normal condition that animals undergo to store fat. Animals' ability to gain "hibernation fat" appears to be regulated by a switch in the mitochondria that is turned on and off by a common food that no longer provides survival advantage to humans living in contemporary society, namely fructose.

Fructose-containing sugars cause weight gain not by the calories they contain, but by triggering this "fat switch," which tells your body it's time to store fat, just as if you were an animal preparing for hibernation. Furthermore, uric acid is increased by fructose, and also causally contributes to obesity and insulin resistance. Effective treatment of obesity therefore requires turning off your fat switch — by avoiding fructose, which is the trigger — and improving the function of your cells' mitochondria.

According to Dr. Johnson:

"Those of us who are obese eat more because of a faulty 'switch,' and exercise less because of a low energy state. If you can learn how to control the specific 'switch' located in the powerhouse of each of your cells – the mitochondria – you hold the key to fighting obesity."

To learn more, I highly recommend picking up a copy of Dr. Johnson's book, The Fat Switch which has been described as the "Holy Grail" for those struggling with their weight.

reference:
 http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/12/01/sugar-industry.aspx?e_cid=20121209_SNL_MV_1

Stone builders:Giants landmark

Posted by: Craig Woolheater on December 6th, 2012

Does Ketchum’s DNA study correlate with Jim Viera’s research?

Vieira’s research over the last 20 years has led him down a bizarre road of intrigue and mystery surrounding the races and built structures of Ancient America. Vieira has compiled thousands of accounts of giant skeleton reports from the New York Times, Smithsonian Ethnology Reports, American Antiquarian, Scientific American as well as town and county histories to make the case that the history of our past has not only been deliberately covered up, but is vastly different then what we are told.

With passions in writing, researching, ancient stone work, spirituality and metaphysics, Jim is a stone mason and co-owner of North Wind Stonework in Ashfield, Massachusetts, USA doing dry masonry in and around the Berkshire Highlands for 15 years. Jim belongs to the Northeast Antiquities Research Association, a clearinghouse of information regarding mysterious monuments of antiquity. Jim is a regular contributing columnist for the Shelburne Falls & West County Independent and the national publication, Ancient American Magazine.

In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.* (*Subject to certain rules and regulations)