(DrFrankLipman – Frank Lipman) In 1946, there was a famous ad that read “more doctors smoke Camels than any other cigarette.” In 1976, Coke’s slogan was “Coke adds Life!” Fast forward a few decades, and we all know better. Both of those ads, however amusingly anachronistic they may now seem, fooled a lot of people and helped damage the bodies of millions of people, the only upside being that now at least, there’s a warning label on cigarettes. I think Coke should have one too. A few years back former Mayor Bloomberg got close by banning sales of super-sized sodas in NYC, a move applauded by all of us in the health community. Not surprisingly, soda manufacturers fought the measure, hoping to shout down health and safety concerns, but the word got out and finally, soda’s getting the bad rap it so richly deserves. With this in mind, just in time for summer, I want to remind you to eliminate soda and soft drinks, sugared or diet, from your life and your family’s. Here are 4 simple reasons to make your soda break-up a no-brainer:

1. They Do a Number on Your Body

There is no conceivable benefit to drinking soft drinks, and their health drawbacks are legion. For starters, they significantly increase diabetes risk and put you at higher risk for cancer, not to mention the added bonus of increased heart attack and stroke risk for daily diet soda drinkers. If that weren’t enough, the phospohoric acid in soft drinks contributes to tooth and bone weakening by facilitating calcium loss. Osteoporosis anyone? A “Coke and a smile?” I don’t think so.

2. There are Toxins in Every Sip

I get it. It’s hot. You’re thirsty and you’re thinking a Coke would taste good on a hot summer day. But would it be as appealing if you took a moment to consider the toxins floating around in that bubbling brown witches brew? Though the actual recipe is a closely guarded secret, there are several alarming ingredients whose damaging effects on your health should stop you in your tracks. Among them: benzene, a known carcinogen; the preservative sodium benzoate which can damage your DNA; high fructose corn syrup, which in addition to encouraging diabetes and obesity, can contain traces of mercury. Add to that the recent questions that have been raised about the presence of 4-methylimidazole (4-MeI) in Coke and Pepsi – which has been shown to cause cancer in lab rats – and perhaps your ice cold soft drink might be better described as a hot mess.

3. The Can isn’t Doing You any Favors Either

Would you like some gender-bending endocrine disruptors with your drink? Then you’ve come to the right place because perennial favorite bisphenol-A (BPA) comes free in every can! So what’s a little BPA between friends? Well, for the soda makers, it means continued profits. For you, however, it can mean ingestion of a chemical which interferes with your hormone function and has been linked to breast cancer, prostate cancer and neurological problems in lab animals. How’s that Coke tasting now?

4. Sodas are Unkind to the Earth

Soda production isn’t a very clean or green business. Between the chemical needed to produce this junk, the fuel needed to transport it, and the tons of plastic bottles created to contain it, one has to question if it’s worth it, just to get a hit of health-destroying, liquid sugar. Take it a step further and consider that even though you may be a rigorous recycler, your bottle may well wind up in the water and polluting the ocean. Bottom line: don’t be part of the problem – just let soda go.

(DrFrankLipman – Frank Lipman) In the last decade or so, hundreds if not thousands of farmers’ markets have opened their gates, creating a thriving alternative to industrially produced food and the impersonal food shopping experience. And while they haven’t totally replaced the supermarket, farmers’ markets are definitely taking a bite out of the industrial food business by offering an easy way to connect with beautiful, fresh, healthy food – and I couldn’t be more delighted.

With access to this healthy shopping option now easier than ever, here are four essential reasons why I believe farmers’ markets are fantastic for your body, mind, and spirit – and why everyone should support them.

1. Farmers’ Markets Are … Good for Your Body and the Earth

There’s a lot to like about food from the farmers’ market. For starters, it’s the farms themselves. Most are small, non-industrial, hands-on, often family-run or cooperative operations with close ties to their land. They tend to value and treat their land right, using low-impact, pesticide-free, sustainable farming methods, which are kinder and less poisonous to the soil and the food that’s grown in it. The result is produce that’s pretty close to organic, minus the official USDA certification.

When these nearly-organic foods arrive at the market, they’re fresh and unadulterated, not having been subjected to the preservative and ripening treatments used on much of the picked-too-early, trucked-in-from-2000-miles-away produce found at a typical supermarket. Even if you don’t count the smaller carbon food-print, you can’t ignore the fact that the stuff is fresh, having been picked at its nutritional peak, just a few hours before it’s in your hands – making farmers’ market produce among the healthiest you can buy.

2. Farmers’ Markets Are … an Excellent Way to Shed Extra Pounds

Granted it won’t happen overnight, but buying the majority of your produce, and when possible eggs, meats, and poultry, at the farmers’ market will help you drop weight. How? Simply by preventing you from buying cartfuls of health-sucking, weight-boosting processed crap. You’ll be choosing from whole, healthy, unprocessed foods – virtually nothing in a box, bag, or can.

You won’t fill your car with a trunk-load of added sugars, sodium, chemicals, or preservatives, thoughtfully wrapped in endocrine-disrupting plastic packaging. You’ll be buying and eating clean, nutrient-packed foods, and eliminating a vast majority of the processed food ingredients that have been keeping you fat and sick.

3. Farmers’ Markets Are … an Uplifting Sensory Experience, Not a Depressing Chore

For most of us, a trip to the supermarket is anything but enjoyable; it’s just one more mind-numbing chore on our never-ending to-do lists. A visit to the farmers’ market, however, is an event – and an experience that engages the senses. There are vivid colors to excite the eye, produce to sniff and squeeze for freshness, and at some markets, on-site musicians adding a live soundtrack to the festivities.

There are the wonderful aromas of produce, freshly-picked, presented in the raw, or handmade, baked, churned, cured, or fermented into wonderful, healthful treats for your table, many of which you can ask to sample before you buy. How many supermarkets provide this kind of an experience – and do it all outdoors, no less?

Farmers’ markets deliver not only the freshest, most earth-friendly and nutrient-dense options in town, they also connect us with the simple, pleasures of discovering, tasting, touching and smelling whole, real foods in an atmosphere that’s inviting and exhilarating, not dreary or exhausting.

4. Farmers’ Markets Are … Good-for-the-Soul Social Events

At the supermarket, there’s little opportunity for human interaction, and with the rise of self-serve checkout machines, the shopping experience can wind up being an insular, solitary one as you troll the aisles, stuck in your own head. Not so at the farmers’ market, which can be a daily or weekly opportunity to connect with your neighbors as well as the real, live people who grew your food.

Amazing, isn’t it? The guy (or gal) standing behind your food can tell you about their unique growing processes, how the plants were treated along the way, how to store your purchases and even how to cook them when you get home. When’s the last time that kind of knowledgeable exchange happened at your local supermarket? My guess would be never.

Another bonus is the easy interaction and natural conviviality between like-minded shoppers, foodies, and farmers, all sharing their knowledge and appreciation of nature’s bounty on offer that week. In our fragmented and disconnected and screen-obsessed lives, I think of farmers’ markets as the ultimate antidote. One of my patients describes her local farmers’ market as “a cocktail party minus the cocktails.”  She stocks up on produce, conversation, and social connection every week.

Locate a Local Farmers’ Market

So this weekend, instead of trudging off to the so-called “supermarket,” head outdoors to the market that really is super for you. To find a farmer’s market in your area, check out Local Harvest’s directory of more than 30,000 family farms and farmers markets. Also have a look at the USDA’s database of more than 8,000 farmers’ markets – and don’t forget to bring your own tote bags to carry home all your purchases! 

For more of my favorite healthy food resources – where to find a farmer’s market, get wild fish, find grass-fed meat and more, see my post on “12 Great Food Resources”.

(DrFrankLipman.com – Robyn O’Brien) A report released by the National Cancer Institute showed a 9.4% increase in childhood cancer between 1992 and 2007. And today, cancer is now the leading cause of death by disease in kids under the age of fifteen.

Correlation is not causation, but the escalating rates of conditions like cancer, diabetes and food allergies have a lot of parents paying attention to what is in their food.  Some cancer doctors even call it the “doorknob syndrome.”  A patient is diagnosed with cancer, spends hours in the office being walked through procedure options, then as they turn to go, with a hand on the doorknob, turn back into the office and ask, “Is there anything I could be doing differently with my diet?”

We are quickly learning that our food is full of a lot of non-food ingredients.

About 15 million pounds of petroleum-based dyes are used in food each year.  And a certain kind of red food coloring, known as “Red 3,” is a known carcinogen that the FDA banned from our medicines and makeup in 1990, but it’s still used in our foods.

But instead of making the long overdue move to do something serious about getting rid of toxic food dyes so ubiquitous in our food supply, dyes derived from synthetic chemicals that studies have linked to cancer, the FDA, upon learning this, fell back on two simple words: “more research.”

In kitchens across this country, eight dyes, currently being used by manufacturers, can be found in everything from packaged macaroni and cheese to breakfast cereal to practically every piece of candy your child has ever put in his or her mouth. Links are being found to hyperactivity in kids (ADHD), cancer and serious food allergies.

But here is the truly amazing thing, and for those of us who have fed our kids these color-laden foods, perhaps the toughest thing to stomach: Kraft, Coca Cola and Wal-Mart have already removed these artificial food colors and dyes from the same products that they distribute in other countries. Skittles?  Don’t have them.  M&Ms?  Don’t have them either.  Neither do cereals, fruit snacks and just about any food you’d think to put in a kids mouth. They did it in response to consumer demand and an extraordinary study called the Southampton Study.

The Southampton Study was unusual in that it tested children on a combination of two ingredients: tartrazine (yellow #5) and sodium benzoate. The study’s designers knew that a child very rarely has occasion to ingest just a synthetic color or just a preservative; rather, a child who is gobbling up multicolored candies is probably taking in several colors and at least one preservative.

What’s amazing is that in the U.K., the federal food safety agency actually funded the Southampton Study that led to even U.S. corporations eliminating synthetic colors and sodium benzoate from their U.K. products.

And in response, a whole host of companies, including the U.K. branches of Wal-Mart, Kraft, Coca Cola and the Mars candy company (who make M&Ms), have voluntarily removed artificial colors, the preservative sodium benzoate, and even aspartame from their products. Particularly those marketed to kids. Take a close look at the ingredient list for the product below.

Our American companies had removed these harmful ingredients from their products overseas — but not here.

Kraft, Coca Cola and Wal-Mart are living proof that it is possible for giant corporations to make and sell kid-friendly, family-friendly, and healthy processed food without necessarily exposing them to a chemical cocktail that might also give them allergic reactions, brain tumors, or leukemia, or the symptoms of ADHD, as the Center for Science in the Public Interest recently highlighted in their report Rainbow of Risks.

Is it too much to ask the FDA and the processed food companies for the same value to be placed on the lives of the American kids in their cost-benefit analyses that has been placed on the lives of kids in the UK?

We can create that same change here. There are apparently 51 million moms waking up to the dangers that toxins present to the health of our kids, that number is the equivalent to the entire population of Spain. And if what is happening in this food movement or the changing landscape of childhood health is any indication, it is time to get down to business, level the playing field for our kids, and send a message to these companies. We can navigate the grocery store a little bit differently, share information with friends and family or even reach out online to our favorite food companies asking them to support this change.  Because while the American children only represent 30% of our population, they are 100% of our future. So while the FDA may not value their lives accordingly, we can.