Thursday 22 March 2012

Healthy Shelf Monthly Giveaway - April 2012

Who is your favourite dog?  Is it your family dog(s), past or present, or a beloved movie or book character?

Simply leave your comment below and you will go into the running to win a free 2 pack of Waggy Dog Bakehouse Large Hearts (12.5cm long each)!

Give a little love back to your four-legged friends!

Waggy Dog Bakehouse aims to provide tasty, healthy treats for dogs whilst practicing sustainable methods of manufacture and promoting adherence to animal welfare standards.

10% of the profits raised from the sale of Waggy Dog Bakehouse treats are donated to the Dogs’ Refuge Home in Shenton Park, Western Australia.
  • Organic ingredients
  • Grain-Free
  • Gluten-Free
  • Corn-Free
  • Soy-Free
  • Dairy-Free
  • No added sugar
  • No preservatives
  • No artificial colours 

Of course we also wanted our treats to be mouth watering and irresistably delicious for dogs! The end result is a healthy and tasty freshly baked organic treat which will have your dog begging for more.

Find more Waggy Dog Bakehouse Treats and much more for all of your dogs, cats and most other pets in the Pet Care section of your Healthy Shelf.

Please include your first name, surname initial and postcode in your comment.

This competition closes midnight (WST) Sunday April 29th 2012 and is open to residents of Australia.  The winner is drawn at random and will be posted here on our Healthy Shelf Blog and on the Healthy Shelf Facebook page within 48 hours of the close of the competiton.

Tuesday 20 March 2012

Congratulations to our March 2012 Monthly Giveaway Winner!

Annette P, you are the winner of our March 2012 Monthly Giveaway, CONGRATULATIONS!

Please contact us via mail@healthyshelf.com.au with your postal address and we will send your Moo Free Easter Egg 100g to you shortly.

Thank you to everyone who entered our Monthly Giveaway. For your chance to win stay tuned to the Healthy Shelf Blog for our April 2012 Monthly Giveaway starting soon!

Friday 2 March 2012

Healthy Shelf Monthly Giveaway - March 2012

What's your favourite thing about Easter?

Simply leave your comment below and you will go into the running to win a free Moo Free Chocolate Easter Egg 100g!  
May contain traces of nuts and soya.  Dairy free, lactose free, gluten free, wheat free, egg free, casein free, vegetarian, vegan. Made with fair trade sugar and cocoa.

This dairy free Easter Egg is made from our organic dairy free and Vegan alternative to milk chocolate in a factory that has only ever been used to make dairy free products. The dairy free and organic Easter Egg is packaged in a lovely Easter Egg box that features Mikey Bunny. Our dairy free Easter Eggs are perfect for kids or adults of any age who can't have dairy products, are Vegan or enjoy quality tasting milk chocolate.

This organic, dairy free Easter Egg is unique. We don't believe that you will find another organic, milk chocolate tasting dairy free Easter Egg manufactured anywhere else in the World. Moo Free bring you all the taste of great tasting milk chocolate Easter Eggs but make them without using any milk. 

Please include your first name, surname initial and postcode in your comment.

This competition closes midnight (WST) March 18th 2012 and is open to residents of Australia.  The winner will be posted here on our Healthy Shelf Blog within 48 hours of the close of the competiton.

Thursday 1 March 2012

Congratulations to our February 2012 Monthly Giveaway Winner!

Shirley M, you are the winner of our February 2012 Monthly Giveaway, CONGRATULATIONS!  

Please contact us via mail@healthyshelf.com.au with your postal address and we will send your Orgran Dinosaur Wholefruit Cookies 175g to you shortly.   

Thank you to everyone who entered our Monthly Giveaway.  For your chance to win stay tuned to the Healthy Shelf Blog for our March 2012 Monthly Giveaway starting soon!

Judge Dismisses Organic Farmers' Case Against Monsanto


A New York federal court today dismissed a lawsuit against agribusiness giant Monsanto brought by thousands of certified organic farmers. The farmers hoped the suit would protect them against infringing on the company's crop patents in the future.

The Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association and several other growers and organizations do not use Monsanto seeds. But they were betting that the judge would agree that Monsanto should not be allowed to sue them if pollen from the company's patented crops happened to drift into their fields.

Instead, the judge found that plaintiffs' allegations were "unsubstantiated ... given that not one single plaintiff claims to have been so threatened." The ruling also found that the plaintiffs had "overstate[d] the magnitude of [Monsanto's] patent enforcement." Monsanto brings an average of 13 patent-enforcement lawsuits per year, which, the judge said, "is hardly significant when compared to the number of farms in the United States, approximately two million."

The company, meanwhile, asserts that it doesn't exercise its patent rights when trace amounts of its patented traits inadvertently end up in farmers' fields.
 
Dan Ravicher, executive director of the Public Patent Foundation and lead lawyer for the plaintiffs, told The Salt that Monsanto remains a "patent bully" and that the judge's decision was "gravely disappointing." The plaintiffs have not yet decided if they will appeal.

Much of the corn, soy, canola and cotton grown in the U.S. is genetically modified. Among them, corn is the most likely to cross-pollinate with plants in nearby fields. That means that genes from genetically modified crops can drift or "trespass" into organic fields.

As Dan Charles reported last year, most organic corn in the U.S. typically contains anywhere from half a percent to 2 percent GMOs, according to companies that sell such corn to organic dairies or poultry farmers. It has been that way since genetically engineered corn and soybeans came into wide use more than a decade ago.

But organic farmers say that GMO contamination could hurt the value of their crop, and they fear lawsuits from Monsanto for possessing their GM genes without paying for them. The documentary Food Inc. portrayed the company as aggressively suing farmers who save its patented seed.

Last year, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Advisory Committee on Biotechnology in the 21st Century began discussing ways to protect organic farmers from contamination.

"Beyond whatever happens with this suit, there are some very legitimate issues behind it," Doug Gurian-Sherman, a senior scientist with the Union of Concerned Scientists, tells The Salt. "There is already a significant burden to organic food production, and there is more coming. It raises the question: Is it possible for organic agriculture to survive in the face of GM crops?"

Monsanto sees it differently, however. In a statement on the judge's decision, executive vice president David F. Snively said, "This decision is a win for all farmers as it underscores that agricultural practices such as ag biotechnology, organic and conventional systems do and will continue to effectively coexist in the agricultural marketplace."

Myth and fact in the gluten debate


Gluten-free is a big buzzword with big bucks behind it. In 2010, the global market for gluten-free products was worth $2.5 billion. Over the next five years, it is expected to grow to more than $5 billion.

But, how much of the buzz behind being gluten-free is bona fide?

A new study raises questions about the hype surrounding the gluten-free phenomenon. According to the study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, titled Nonceliac Gluten Sensitivity: Sense or Sensibility?, there are 4598 Google citations of noncoeliac gluten sensitivity for every science journal article about the condition.

"Considerable debate about noncoeliac gluten sensitivity has recently surfaced on the internet, with a sharp increase in forums, patients or patient groups, manufacturers, and physicians advocating a gluten-free diet," the study's authors said. "Claims seem to increase daily, with no adequate scientific support to back them up."

The researchers acknowledge that "recent studies support the existence of a new condition, noncoeliac gluten sensitivity", but say gluten may not be the problem in a lot of the sensitivity that patients feel.
Gluten is found in products that contain wheat, rye and barley. In the study, the researchers noted that other ingredients in wheat flour or wheat-based foods may actually be causing symptoms that might be attributed to gluten sensitivity.

Yet, another study was specifically designed to establish whether gluten or fructans, which are another component in wheat, was the culprit. In the study, subjects were given bread and muffins that were low in starch. One batch of the bread and muffins contained gluten, the other did not.
The study found that gluten itself may trigger gut symptoms and fatigue in individuals who do not have coeliac disease.

"There was a clear difference in symptoms [between those who had the muffins with gluten and those who didn't]," says co-author of the study and Director of Medicine at the Angliss Hospital in Melbourne, Dr Evan Newnham. "There's a perception that [gluten-free] is a fad and that gluten is an evil food. But trials [like these] establish that it might be a clinical and medical problem."

Indeed, an essay published in the BioMed Central Journal says that gluten is "toxic" to humans and predicts that gluten-related problems are set to rise.

Since the introduction of grains containing gluten to the human diet about 10,000 years ago, selective breeding has seen the gluten content of wheat rise considerably to make it more palatable. The offshoot of this is that it is more harmful to humans. "Wheat varieties grown for thousands of years and mostly used for human nutrition up to the middle ages ... contain less quantities of the highly toxic 33-mer gluten peptide."

The authors say that our gastrointestinal and immunological responses have not adapted and so we remain "largely vulnerable to the toxic effects of this protein complex ... All individuals, even those with a low degree risk, are therefore susceptible to some form of gluten reaction during their life span."

But, because it is only in the last decade that coeliac disease and gluten sensitivities (for which doctors cannot test) have moved into the spotlight the research is still in its infancy. Which makes the distinction between how much is fact or fad a challenging call to make.

And it is not just the medical professionals debating the issue.

Mia Freedman recently expressed her exasperation in a post titled: "Does anyone eat anything anymore?". In the blog, she quotes nutritionist, Joanna McMillan.

"Some people cannot tolerate gluten yet suddenly everyone thinks gluten is bad. The truth is: it is modern refined foods that are causing most of our health problems. Not the individual components of food. We're missing the point."

"It never used to be like this," Freedman says. "Nobody had an intolerance when I was a kid, let alone wanted one."

In response, blogger and author, Sarah Wilson wrote an article titled "What's with all the gluten intolerances?? let me explain..."

"The short form: gluten is a poison," she says. "We tolerate it, and tolerate it, like cigarettes in the lungs. And then. One day. It's too much. Things tip over and BANG we have lung cancer. Or gluten intolerance. Or coeliac's disease."

Wilson also points out that we eat more wheat than ever before and cites the Pottinger cats theory as a possible explanation for the growth of gluten-related problems.

Over a period of ten years, Pottinger conducted a series of diet experiements on cats. "He found the illnesses (including infertility and the same degenerative diseases we're now seeing in humans) took several generations to kick in. And that it took four generations again of being fed good food for normal health to be restored," Wilson said.

"The point being...intolerances haven't just suddenly happened now. They've built up and accumulated over the generations. Our grandparents started eating processed, high-wheat and gluten diets. Now we're copping it."

There is something to this, says Newnham. "Environment, awareness...genes and how [previous generations] have eaten all have a role," he says. "The difficulty is to tease it all out."

Teasing out is exactly what the medical profession is now attempting to do. "While [gluten sensitivities] are anecdotally common, the medical community has been slow on the uptake," Newnham says. "On the whole we do tolerate [gluten], but it's increasingly recognised that there is a subset of the population that doesn't. What we don't know is the prevalence...[it] still needs more research"

If you do believe gluten is causing you problems, Newnham does not see a problem with going gluten-free provided it is done under the supervision of a dietitian or doctor. "But, I'd just like to emphasise that before embarking on a gluten-free diet ensure you don't have coeliac disease. Complications can ensue [if you do] and you can find out with a simple blood test or endoscopy."

What's the difference:

Coeliac disease (CD) is an autoimmune enteropathy triggered by the ingestion of gluten. Gluten-sensitive individuals (GS) cannot tolerate gluten and may develop gastrointestinal symptoms similar to those in CD, but the overall clinical picture is generally less severe.

Gluten sensitivity refers to an adverse reaction to eating gluten that usually does not lead to damage of the small intestine.

Wheat allergy is not specifically related to the gut. Reactions to wheat can vary significantly and like other classic food allergies can affect the skin, gastrointenstinal tract or respiratory tract.

Coeliac denotes a response to gluten that causes the immune system to attack its own body tissue