[CLTann]

The John Hopkins posting is interesting and worthy to have our attention.

A few items that are certainly questionable:

1. Acidic food is harmful and alkaline, by implication is good. Our stomach acid will turn all food into acidic. That is the mechanism how foods are digested.

2. Soy or no soy, no clear conclusion from "authorities".

3. Sugar is bad. We should refrain from taking very sweet food. However, all food quickly changed to glucose in the body. That is the accepted theory of how diabetic people are having problems. Therefore, regardless how careful one is to refrain from sugar intake, one still has plenty of glucose to deal with. In fact, people cannot live without glucose.

4. Red meats are bad. The whole world is gradually adopting more red meats because of the economic level of the whold world is improving. The higher longevity of the world population is often credited to better nutrition. Red meats are commonly associated with better nutrition. I believe a judicious amount of red meats, along with chicken, fish, legume, fruit and veggie should be okay. Before we are totally severed from red meats, I can already see the headline: No fish, because they contain heavy metals. Farm raised seafood are fed with hormones as well as bad insecticides from the food chain.

5. Salt is bad. I have no vague idea where they get the additive information on the salt manufacturing process. Some salt is supplemented with iodine purposefully. Sea salt, on the other hand, contains many undesirable ingredients, including polyvalent metal ions.

6. The report is totally silent about Sunlight, smoking danger, street drugs and protection from contaminated air and water. Most people got their ailments from people or animal contacts.

7. Overall, the report is an excellent collection of advice and we should follow most of them routinely.