Monday, October 14, 2013

Oct. 13, 2013, 7:28 a.m. EDT

10 things Coke, Pepsi and soda industry won’t say

The hard truth about soft drinks

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By Quentin Fottrell

Chip Wass

1. “Energy drinks aren’t for everyone.”

Energy drinks often seem to target young people, with rock concerts, skateboarders and surfers featuring prominently in their advertising. But the City of San Francisco filed a lawsuit on Monday alleging that one company has gone a step too far. It accuses Monster Energy of marketing its caffeinated beverage to minors as young as six. The lawsuit alleges that Monster “targets children and teenagers by promoting a ‘lifestyle’ that features extreme sports, music, gaming, military themes and scantily-clad ‘Monster Girls.’”

“Monster Energy is unique among energy-drink makers for the extent to which it targets children and youth in its marketing, despite the known risks its products pose to young people’s health and safety,” San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera said on Monday. Monster disputes the allegations. The lawsuit’s allegations are “demonstrably false” and Monster will “vigorously defend” the action, a spokeswoman for the company said in a statement. They appear to be motivated by publicity rather than fact or science, she said. “Monster — as it has repeatedly said — does not market to children,” she added.

www.monsterenergy.com

Monster Energy Drink

The lawsuit follows a decision by the Food and Drug Administration last week to investigate the effects that food and beverages high in caffeine have on young people. Maureen Beach, a spokeswoman for the American Beverage Association, says energy drinks have been “enjoyed safely” in the U.S. for more than 15 years and around the world for over 25 years.

For their part, other drinks companies also say they are careful about their marketing. 5-Hour Energy (manufactured by a company that is not a member of the ABA) is a 1.93 fluid ounce “shot” rather than a “drink” and is only marketed to adults as a dietary supplement, says Elaine Lutz, a spokeswoman for 5-Hour Energy. Lutz says 5-Hour doesn’t market its products to children and does not recommend individuals take more than two shots a day (spaced several hours apart).

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5 Foods Americans Eat that Are Banned Around the World

http://shine.yahoo.com/shine-food/5-foods-americans-eat-banned-around-world-161800329.html

5 Foods Americans Eat that Are Banned Around the World

By The Daily Meal | Shine Food – 9 hours ago

Synthetic Hormones rBGH & rBSTThe United States government has set several rules and guidelines in place to protect us from eating potentially harmful foods. Several dishes considered real delicacies in other parts of the world, like haggis in Scotland or fugu (puffer fish) in Japan, are banned from the U.S. food market because of potential health risks. But looking at the issue from a reversed angle, there are actually several common foods eaten in America that are banned in other parts of the world.

RELATED: 11 Banned Ingredients We Eat In the U.S.
The shocking truth is that many of our favorite foods, like boxed mac and cheese and yogurt, include ingredients that other countries have established as potentially harmful for health, and therefore are banned. Clearly, mac and cheese on its own isn't poisonous in any way, but the yellow food colorings #5 and #6 have been shown to cause hypersensitivity in children, and are therefore banned in countries including Norway, Finland, and Australia. For yogurt and other milk products, it is the rBGH and rBST that some countries are concerned with - these growth hormones are banned in several regions including the European Union, Canada, and Japan because of their potentially dangerous impacts on the health of both humans and cows.

RELATED: 10 Foods and Drinks Banned in America

Though the studies and investigations showing the possible dangers of these ingredients are not to be taken lightly, food manufactures in America surely are not trying to poison the American people. Different countries have different policies and politics when it comes to food, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) assures that it is monitoring the safety of all ingredients available for American consumers. The varying food-safety laws around the world are good reminders for all of us to be aware of what ingredients are in our foods, and not to panic, but to use common sense and mild precaution when choosing what foods we eat.

RELATED: 150 Foods Worth Traveling For
1. Olestra (aka Olean)
Olestra is a zero-calorie fat substitute created to make healthier snacks such as fat-free potato chips. But olestra has been shown to cause side effects in the form of gastrointestinal problems, as well as weight gain - instead of weight loss - on lab rats. The U.K. and Canada are two places that have banned this fat substitute from their food markets.

2. Brominated Vegetable Oil

Brominated vegetable oil (BVO), is vegetable oil, derived from corn or soy, bonded with the element bromine. It's added to many sodas and sports drinks prevent the flavoring from separating and floating to the surface. But bromine has also been shown to alter the central nervous and endocrine systems, causing skin rashes, acne, loss of appetite, fatigue, and cardiac arrhythmia. The chemical is banned both in Europe and Japan.

RELATED: 101 Best Hotel Restaurants Around the World 2013

3. Synthetic Hormones rBGH & rBST

These two growth hormones can be found in dairy products such as yogurt and milk. The controversy with cows injected with these hormones is that several studies cite rBGH as a cause of cancer. Due to these reports, many consumers in the U.S. choose to buy organic milk and dairy products, as well as those labeled "rBGH free," and the hormone is totally banned at milk and dairy farms and in dairy products in the European Union, Australia, Canada, Israel, and New Zeeland.

RELATED: 13 Breakfast Plates Around the World
4. Azodicarbonamide

This chemical azodicarbonamide can be found in boxed pasta mixes, breads, frozen dinners, and packaged baked goods, and is added as an instant bleaching agent for flour. In Singapore, Australia, and most European countries, this chemical is banned due to reports of it causing asthma. Azodicarbonamide is also a chemical used in foamed plastics, like yoga mats.

5. BHA and BHT

Found in cereals, nut mixes, chewing gum, butter spreads, and many other foods in need of preservation, BHA (butylated hydroxyanisole) and BHT (butylated hydroxytoluene) are commonly used preservatives. The National Toxicology Program's 2011 report on carcinogens states that BHA can trigger allergic reactions and hyperactivity and "is reasonably anticipated to be a human hazard." The preservatives are both banned in parts of the European Union and Japan, and the U.K. doesn't allow BHA in infant foods.

Click here to see more Foods Americans Eat That Are Banned Around the World

-Elsa Säätelä, The Daily Meal

Saturday, October 12, 2013

Snowden: mass surveillance making us less safe

http://news.yahoo.com/snowden-mass-surveillance-making-us-less-safe-124458045.html

6 hours ago

MOSCOW (AP) — Former National Security Agency systems analyst Edward Snowden says surveillance programs used by the United States to tap into phone and Internet connections around the world are making people less safe.

In short video clips posted by the WikiLeaks website on Friday, Snowden said the NSA mass surveillance he revealed before fleeing to Russia "puts us at risk of coming into conflict with our own government."

Snowden, who faces espionage charges in the U.S. over the leak, described the techniques as "dragnet mass surveillance that puts entire populations under sort of an eye that sees everything even when it's not needed."

"They hurt our economy. They hurt our country. They limit our ability to speak and think and live and be creative, to have relationships and to associate freely," Snowden said.

The videos are the first of Snowden speaking since July 12, when he was shown at a Moscow airport pleading with Russian authorities to grant him asylum, which they did on Aug. 1.

That decision has strained the relations between the U.S. and Russia. President Barack Obama called off a meeting with President Vladimir Putin at a summit hosted by Russia in September.

Snowden said the U.S. government was "unwilling to prosecute high officials who lied to Congress and the country on camera, but they'll stop at nothing to persecute someone who told them the truth."

In a note accompanying the videos, WikiLeaks said Snowden spoke on Wednesday in Moscow as he accepted the Sam Adams Award, given annually by a group of retired U.S. national security officers and named for a CIA analyst during the Vietnam War who accused the U.S. military of deliberately underestimating the enemy's strength for political purposes.

Four former U.S. government officials who were at the ceremony told The Associated Press on Thursday that Snowden is adjusting to life in Russia and said they saw no evidence that he was under the control of local security services. They refused to say where they met with Snowden or where he is living.

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Friday, October 11, 2013

Facebook policy change leaves users with nowhere to hide

http://news.yahoo.com/facebook-policy-change-leaves-users-nowhere-hide-183044983.html

By Zach Epstein9 hours ago

Facebook policy change leaves users with nowhere to hide

Facebook users who prefer to lurk in the shadows will not be terribly pleased to learn of a new change toFacebook’s privacy settings that is currently in the process of being rolled out. Facebook users until now have had the option to hide their accounts from the website’s search service. Enabling the setting would mean that their profiles would not be included in search results even when people search for them by name. This will no longer be the case once Facebook removes the privacy option in question, however. Facebook says that the new change will only impact a single-digit percentage of its user base, but we’re not sure how comforting that is. Considering Facebook is currently home to about 1.2 billion users, that means this change could impact more than 100 million people around the world.