Should Black Forest Homes Be Rebuilt? Probably Not

The Black Forest fire, after burning up 24 square miles, leaving two dead and destroying over 500 homes, is now nearly out for good. It is easily the most disastrous fire in the state's history, having consumed nearly $800m in property (estimated) and exacted fire fighting resource costs of nearly $36 million, according to the Denver Post (June 16).  Of course, watchful waiting is still needed, as fire fighters still can't relax but must move through and across the scorched forest grounds digging up to six inches deep to excavate still burning embers and pine cones beneath. Even a single spark then can start a new conflagration, if precautions aren't taken, especially as "fire weather" resumes tomorrow with temperatures in the 90s and low humidity, winds.

Meanwhile, the families affected hanker to get back and re-build their homes, yes, in the same Black Forest. Is this a good idea? No, I don't believe so for reasons I will get into.  But recall, this is one year after the Waldo Canyon fire which also blew out of a forested area last year and took 346 homes with it, at a cost of rebuiliding at nearly $450 million. That's nearly a half billion dollars.

Are we now to see these damned fires every year? Yes, according to Prof. Frederick 'Skip' Smith, of Colorado State University and head of the Warner College of Natural Resources Department of Forest and Rangeland Stewardship. According to Prof. Smith, these annual fires are now the "new normal:". Persistent drought conditions, combined with the ravages of the mountain pine beetle (turning forests into tinder) have made the likelihood of destruction by wild fires a near certainty and yes, every year! Worse, people are contributing to the mayhem by deliberately moving into forested areas that themselves are becoming increasingly overgrown.

To highlight this, Colorado state district forester Larry Long - quoted in the Post article (p. 21A) and noting a fire in the densely wooded Black Forest had long been feared:

"They need to take about half of the trees out and then come back and take another third out. It would be a stark contrast to what it is now. But that is a healthy forest. It looks very nice, it gets park like."

The implication clearly is that no one ought to be rebuilding until such time the forest is thinned out.

Beyond that, no home - not one - ought to be built until every last bit of burnt, dried tinder left behind is removed, every last charcoaled tree stump. Moreover,  each new home needs to be re-designed with fire-mitigation structures, techniques in mind.  Same ol', same ol' cannot work ....not any more, and it is supreme stupidity to allow people to just rebuild according to original specs.

As Smith said:

"It's going to mean we are going to have to do a better job of designing these communities and making them defensible in the face of the certainty that these fires are going to happen."

That includes building homes that don't ignite as easily, having infrastructure in place for fire fighters and having escape routes for homeowners as well as fire mitigation plans integrated into all future building codes.

This is extemeley important given over 540,000 Coloradans currently inhabit forested danger areas and that growth in the wildland-urban interface is expected to increase 300 percent in the next two decades, according to Joe Duda - the state's interim forester.

Prof. Smith himself isn't enamored of any more building-construction of homes in these fire prone areas. As he put it (Ibid.):

"We're not going to be able to live with it. The costs are too great. The amount of money we spend for fire suppression is huge and not sustainable. And continuing to put young people at risk to fight fires is not something we want to do."

Bingo!  Additionally, as noted in today's Post (p. 1A), insurance specialists have observed that the premiums paid by home owners living in forested areas don't reflect the risks - so they will undoubtedly have to go up. This should be no different from what happened to those living in the Hurricane Charlie storm zone on Florida's SW coast in 2004. In particular, after Charlie damaged my folks' place in Port Charlotte their insurance premiums shot up 75%. The new premiums were so high that they had to move into a senior apartment complex.  They hated to leave their home of 22 years, but at the same time were relieved to be away from having full responsibility for a hurricane-prone domecile.

In addition to higher premiums, a task force appointed by Gov. John Hickenlooper is looking into the implementation of yearly 'risk' fees such as apply currently in California. There, home owners in wooded risk areas pay $150 each per year for fire protection services that may be used. The total collected last year came in at $90 million which provided enough to fight CA wildfires this year. People are simply going to have to get used to paying for the privilege of living in these isolated, wooded areas. To quote one letter writer in today's Post:

"A tragedy befell those folks who moved out in the woods — perhaps to get away from it all — under the illusion that they are independent of the rest of the world. In fact, they moved all their material stuff to a naturally fragile environment, now under severe stress due to a number of factors, the most prominent being massive climate change. Anyone who lives in such an area needs to understand that they are placing themselves literally in the line of fire while their own presence further damages a suffering ecosystem of plants and animals. " - Linda J. Drake

Meanwhile, the origin of the fire is now suspected as arson, and investigators are going through the scene where it putatively started to ferret out clues. Whoever did this, well...they merit the ultimate penalty.

Introducing Some Advanced Astrophysics (2)

Note: Some readers may first wish to review this basic physics blog here: http://www.brane-space.blogspot.com/2011/05/basic-physics-thermodynamics-pt-12.html

Besides gas pressure, there is also the radiation pressure:

P _R = aT⁴/ 3

where a is the radiation density constant which is equal to:  7.55 x 10 ^-16 Jm^-3 K^-4 and T is the absolute temperature (in K degrees).  The equation above is valid only if the material is in thermodynamic equilibrium (i.e. the distribution of radiation is that of a black body). This is generally true, but some exceptions do exist.

In dealing with stars, energy considerations also arise. In particular, the thermal and gravitational energy of a star are very closely related.  In a perfect gas, the total thermal energy is found by multiplying the number of particles N by the degrees of freedom, f, possessed by each particle. The thermal energy per unit volume is then: ½Nf kT.

The number of degrees of freedom f is also related to the ratio of specific heats (g) of the material by:

g         = (f + 2) / f

where g is the ratio of the specific heat at constant pressure to the specific heat at constant volume (if confused, refer to link given above)  or:

g  =  C _p / C _v

Using the equation for a perfect gas and introducing the thermal energy per kg, U, we find:

U = P/ (g   - 1) r

Bear in mind the material inside a star is highly ionized and in physics a fully ionized gas or plasma is mono-atomic, for which g = 5/3.

Using the previous equation for U in conjunction with the virial theorem, it can be shown that for a star with g = 5/3:

2U + W  = 0

where U is the thermal energy for the whole star and W is the gravitational energy such that:

W  =  - G ò _o ^R  M(r) dM(r) / r = - GM²/ 2R

But the potential energy, V = 2W = - GM²/ R

This can be put into an even more useful form based on the kinetic theory of gases, for which:

P = r v²/ 3

And: -  W  =  3 ò PdV = 3 ò (P/r) dm

Whence:

3 ò (P/r) dm = 3 ò v²dm/ 3  =  m v²   = 2 K

Where K denotes the (gravitational) kinetic energy, which is also expressed:

K = GM²/R

Then in terms of the gravitational energy, W:

-  W  =  2K   or  2K + W  = 0

But: W= - GM²/ 2R  so: K = -W/ 2 = GM²/ R

Which checks out.  We are left with these conclusions:

1) 2K + W  = 0 applies to any spherical system in equilibrium where K is the gas kinetic energy and also the gravitational kinetic energy. (K = 3/2(g - 1)U). As we saw before:

U = P/ (g   - 1) r  so:  P/r  = U (g   - 1) 

Then: 3 ò (P/r) dm = 3 ò U (5/3   - 1) dm = 2 K

2) The binding or total energy of a star E_T is then:

 E_T  = K + V  = GM²/ 2R  + (- GM²/ R) = - GM²/ 2R

Or: E_T  =  W/ 2 = -K

Thus, the total energy of a star is negative and equal to half the gravitational potential energy or the negative of the gas kinetic (or gravitational kinetic).   From the preceding we see that if for some reason E_T  decreases, then K increases but W decreases (e.g. the sphere must contract).

Problem for the budding astrophysicist:

For a uniform sphere with a polytropic index n = 0 for uniform density, show that V = -6/5 (GM²/R). Take the potential to be:

W=  3/ (n – 5) (GM²/ R )

For any polytropic gas sphere.*

* Polytropic gas spheres are basically mathematical entities used for modeling of actual stars. As usual, some basic assumptions are made (often in terms of temperatures, pressures, potential energies etc.) and these are then used to develop one or more "polytropic" models to test to see if they can work for a given star. Or, more likely, be employed as a guide to model a star.

A primary objective is to develop a basis for a self-gravitating sphere. In the most desirable of cases, one works to attain a simple relationship between the pressure P, and density (r) of a form:

P  =  K (r) ^{(1 + 1/n)}

where K and n are constants, and n is known as "the polytropic index" and K the "polytropic constant".

The polytropic index n can be defined:

n = 1/ (g - 1)

(where 'g ' is the ratio of specific heats.)

The problem thus asks the reader to regard the hypothetical uniform sphere as having a polytropic index n = 0 associated with a sphere of uniform density, and adopting the given mathematical form for the gravitational energy.
 

Cheney Calls Snowden a Traitor? HAHAHAHAHA!

It was a hoot and a holler this morning seeing the frothing, outraged mug of Dick Cheney on network television calling Edward Snowden a “traitor”. I was so struck with the irony of it: the putative biggest traitor since Benedict Arnold calling "the kettle black", that I doubled over with laughter, even incepting another bronchitis -coughing spasm. Let’s recall here that it was Cheney who had a plan underfoot to bogusly attack Iraq from 1992  (under the banner of the 'Project for the New American Century') operating under the presumption that Poppy Bush (George the First) would be re-elected. Well, he wasn’t, Clinton took the election thanks to Ross Perot splitting the ‘puke vote. This meant Cheney’s plan had to be put on hold until another Bush could get in, and that wasn’t until 2000 – when five treasonous Supreme Court justices interrupted a Florida recount to hand the election to Junior.

Even then it wasn’t a done deal, a pretext still had to be found for invasion and occupation. The gift fell into the laps of Bush, Cheney and their Neocon warmonger cohort with the devastating 9/11 attacks. People will argue over 9/11’s real origins until their dying day but one thing we do know: the Bush Criminals profited handsomely in the wake, with Bush’’s approval rating shooting up into the 90s (from below 35%) even as the national security state and military –industrial complex got the go ahead for the biggest spending in 60 years. At the very least, while many of us don’t believe these vermin deliberately blew up the Twin Towers, we do think it highly probable they KNEW what was coming and sat back and did nothing. In other words they let it happen.  It was simply too great a benefit ‘plum’ to do otherwise. See also: http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2012/09/how-responsible-was-bush-for-911.html

It also finally enabled the original Cheney Iraq invasion-occupation plan to be put into motion. All the Neocon memos surfacing from just after 9/11 (many from Paul Wolfowitz & Cheney) showed repeated underscored emphases like: “TIE SADDAM TO 9/11! HOW?” Indeed, how? Since Saddam was a resolute secularist who had no tolerance for religious extremists of either the Sunni or Shi’ite Muslim stripe. But the traitor Cheney and his Neocon ilk were determined to make the connection and have the corporate U.S. media coopted to assist in the PR blitz that lasted from October, 2002 until March, 2003 when the Cheney-bred dogs of war were unleashed. To that end, the Cheney-directed Neocons employed every sort of ruse - from 'yellowcake' to aluminum tubes and alleged claims of WMD (from an Iraqi traitor rat named 'curve ball') - to pump up a bogus case for invasion just like Hitler and the Nazis did (using faked imagery of German fraus being raped by Poles) to justify an invasion of Poland in 1939. Once he had the U.S. corporate media on his side it was merely a matter of drum beating a sheep-like American public into giving him the poll numbers he desired to launch an invasion in March, 2003.


The end results were absolutely disastrous, for both the Iraqi people and the U.S.: a wasteful occupation that in the end cost us over $3 trillion and more than 4400 American lives as well as 600,000 innocent Iraqi lives (according to WHO, the World Health Organization). Meanwhile, the bloody Nazified takeover as well as hyped rhetoric (“Axis of Evil”) drove the other two members of that defined “axis”, Iran and North Korea, to develop their own nuclear weapons – realizing this would likely be the only deterrent to the crazed Amerikkan pre-emptive warmongers. So, if Iran and North Korea do have ‘x’ atomic bombs today, you can lay the blame on Dick Cheney’s lap as well as his accomplices, aka the Neocon rats like Paul Wolfowitz, William Kristol, Richard Perle et al.


Make no mistake that Cheney is the real traitor, whose costly pre-emptive war will cost us well into the future, including the brain-damaged vets needing aid, and benefits. To call a real hero like Snowden a traitor is not only to miss the mark on the meaning of the word, but how far our own country has gone down the sewer of decline and mental damage in the last twelve years. The fact the media would put a turd like Cheney on to bloviate and cast aspersions on Snowden also reveals the extent to which the media itself have devolved into total state propaganda whores. (Evidenced even now as most pile onto Snowden, decrying everything from his lack of education, to going to Hong Kong for his revelations and being a "narcissist". Many other people I once respected have disclosed themselves to be shills, including Bob Schieffer and Debbie Wasserman-Schulz)


As for Cheney's claim that the current NSA dragnet surveillance would have stopped 9/11, don't make me freakin' laugh! The actual problem was that the Bushies ignored reams of key information, such as the August, 2001 President's Daily Brief highlighting "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S."  Bush received this while at his Crawford, TX retreat. (He took more vacations than any other president in his first year alone.) And how did Bush respond to this? He gave a quick glance then went to clear some ....bush. But what ought to have made his eyeballs pop out was the short paragraph reading (9/11 Commission Report, p. 255-56):

"An Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) operative told an [—] service at the same time that Bin Ladin was planning to exploit the operative’s access to the US to mount a terrorist strike."



Then there was the monumental intelligence failure documented by former FBI agent Coleen Rowley who  testified in front of the Senate and for the 9/11 Commission about the FBI's internal organization and mishandling of information related to the September 11, 2001, attacks. She noted how  the FBI failed to take action on information provided by the Minneapolis, Minnesota Field Office regarding its investigation of suspected terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui.

In contrast to Cheney's bullshit claims, the fact is that there was a surfeit of information and data - so much that the Bushie brats either chose to ignore it, or be over selective in what they'd attend to. But again, that's being generous, Those of us who are deep politics citizens and standard politics cynics can't leave out the conviction the Bushies allowed 9/11 to occur on their watch, to reap massive political gain. The past twelve years' growth of the military and super spy complex more than validates that, not to mention how Bush's history has now been so reconstructed at his Dallas' library that only Americans paying attention would know how much of it is bull crap.

See also:  http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article1544.htm

---------------
Footnote: In a live Q & A on The Guardian website, Snowden fired back at Cheney, lambasting him as the one who engineered the warrantless wiretaps - before the FISA law was revised to make the illegal, legal. See Snowden take down the lying mutt Cheney in the Q&A published at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/17/edward-snowden-us-fair-trial?guni=Network%20front:network-front%20aux-1%20Mini-bento:Bento%20box%208%20col:Position1

In the course of the Q&A Snowden also gives much more background into the NSA surveillance program including the use of  "weasel words" by the spy masters to try to squirm out of what they're really up to. I guaran-damn tee you this is the only place you will see these things revealed.
Snowden also pointedly observed that to be called a "traitor" by the likes of Cheney was actually an honor, given, of course, Cheney is the real traitor!

Astrophysics Solutions (1)

1.  We know:   P = (N _o + N_e) k T

Where N _o  is the number of atoms of all kinds, both neutral (unionized) and ionized and  N_e  is the number of free electrons (the greater this number, the higher the degree of ionization). The total gas pressure therefore is the sum of the two pressures:

 

P = N _o k T + N_e k T

Then:

N_e k T =  (1.45 x 10 ¹⁹)( 1.38 x 10^-23 J/K) (5650 K) = 1.13 Pa

But P, the total gas pressure is 8.3 x 10³ Pa, so:

P = 8.3 x 10³ Pa  =  N _o k T + N_e k T = N _o k T + 1.13 Pa

Then: N _o k T = 8.3 x 10³ Pa   -  1.13 Pa » 8.3 x 10³ Pa 

N o = (8.3 x 10³  Pa ) / k T =

(8.3 x 10³  Pa ) / (1.38 x 10-23 J/K) (5650 K)

N _o = 1.06 x 10 ²³

Where N _o    is the total number of neutral and ionized atoms.

2) We assume negligible amounts of heavier elements so:

m        = 4/ (6X + Y + 2)

Where X = 0.9 and Y = 0.1.  Substituting those values:

m        = 4/ (6(0.9) +   0.10 + 2) 

= 4/ (0.54 + 0.10 + 2) = 4/ 2.64

m        = 1.51

(Note that this molecular weight is in proton masses)

3)  We have: 

1/ m  =  (2X + 3Y/4 + ½Z)

But the no. of electrons is:

N_e  =   r /H [X +  (Y + Z)/ 2]  »  r [1 + X]/ 2H

1/ m  =   H N_e /  r  =  (1 + X)/ 2

m =  2/ (1 + X)

Josh Fox Eats Niall Ferguson’s Lunch on Bill Maher's Real Time

Scene from the Josh Fox documentary ‘Gasland’ in which a homeowner lights his tap water on fire. Fox had the last laugh on terminal bore Niall Ferguson, appearing on Bill Maher last night.

Gasland and Gasland II film maker Josh Fox didn’t hold back Friday night when confronted by the Harvard conservative prof and Über Troll, Niall Ferguson. The fur flew, diatribes were unleashed and Ferguson howled “Cheap Shot!” after Fox suggested he might be one of the beneficiaries of fracking which is why he so avidly defends it. Ferguson resorted to just about every tawdry ruse and cheap tactic in the pseudo-armory of the entitled, aristocrat class, including denigrating Fox’s credentials, asking at one point: “What qualifies you to do this apart from being a film maker?” Fox responded: “I’m an American CITIZEN!” To which the audience cheered. Bravo! And to be sure, the citizen has paramountcy when federal, state and local governments try to undermine our voices.


Ferguson, twisting his face up to emulate a spoiled brat, then deplored the absence of any “science” in Fox's film efforts. But Fox held his own, especially on the issue of the water contamination- challenging Ferguson on whether he’s actually examined the data.


Most pleasing to the audience was Fox calling out Ferguson for his constant interruptions: “You haven’t let me complete a single sentence yet without interruption!” But this is common for the entitled likes of a twerp Harvard history professor. One can only feel sorry for his students who must resort to extreme distractions when they’re caught up in one of his classes.


Ferguson harped on an “MIT study” but that study MIT: The Facts On Fracking Methane Emissions,   was more concerned with the level of methane emissions relative to ordinary gas drilling – it didn’t address the water contamination issues at all. What we DO know is that Theo Colborn and researchers at the Endocrine Disruption Exchange here in Colorado pored through industry and government documents to assemble a list of generic chemicals used in hydraulic fracking, with the findings published in the journal, Human and Ecological Risk Assessment(2011).


The results are scary to say the least. Of  353 fracking chemicals for which they could find health information, nearly half affected the brain and nervous system. Meanwhile, a quarter were likely carcinogens and forty percent had the potential to adversely impact the endocrine system which regulates sexual development, pregnancy and critical aspects of child development.


Oil and gas industry PR meisters and hacks insist the levels of their chemicals are so low that there’s no need for concern, but scientists like Colborn aren’t assured. They know the existing data show that fetal and early childhood exposures to even very low levels of endocrine-disrupting chemicals can have lasting effects over a lifetime. These effects include infertility and early puberty in girls.


Another worrisome aspect that twits like Ferguson overlook, is the debris – including radioactive- hurled up to form pools of produced water. These pools contain not only the chemicals originally injected into the ground, but heavy metals as well as radioactive material – which can drift into nearby homes, school yards. This finding has been published in ‘New Solutions: A Journal of Environmental and Occupational Health Policy’ by Alisa Rich who has studied such ponds, pools in Texas.


At the end of the Maher Real Time show it was a double TKO for Josh Fox, taking out both the troll Niall Ferguson as well as Neoliberal hack Jonathan Alter who at one point came to Ferguson's aid. (Neoliberals of the same political class stick together like rats.....errrrr.....birds of a feather.)


Of course, make no mistake the oil and gas industry will squeal like stuck pigs, just as much as the intelligence community is for having its own excesses exposed. We citizens will always have to expect those who would keep us deaf, dumb and blind to react this way. They want us to remain sheep, and when others help us to break out of the sheep mold, the arrogant corporate-war-spy state goes ape shit, along with all their whore lackeys. This is what the real citizen comes to expect, and we ignore it in our pursuit of truth and transparency pertaining to issues affecting our lives. We also continue to try to wake up our slumbering, semi-comatose fellow citizens who, for some reason, seem to think none of this matters, at least in their self-contained, egocentric social media universe.

Introducing Some Advanced Astrophysics (1)

This blog commences a series of posts to do with aspects of advanced astrophysics.

What exactly is a star? Basically it can be thought of as an immense, controlled fusion bomb, bound by gravity. It manufactures heavier elements through the nuclear fusion process and generates heat and light as a result.

With regard to this, it’s a of interest to note we have more confidence regarding the nature of the physical interior of stars and the Sun than the interiors of planets like the Earth. The reason is that the physical laws to be applied are simpler once one is dealing with an ionized gas or plasma.

If a star isn’t an ordinary ball of gas, then what is it? A clue is provided by the characteristically high temperatures of stellar interiors. These temperatures are so high, e.g. 10 million degrees Celsius, that no normal gas can exist. Thus it’s nearly totally ionized allowing a much greater compression of stellar material without significant deviation from the perfect gas law of physics – though that law must now be modified. The modified form is written (Where k is Boltzmann’s constant = 1.38 x 10^-23 JK^-1):

P = (N _o + N_e) k T

Where N _o  is the number of atoms of all kinds, both neutral (unionized) and ionized and  N_e  is the number of free electrons (the greater this number, the higher the degree of ionization). The total gas pressure therefore is the sum of the two partial pressures:

P = N _o k T + N_e k T

The second term is known as the ‘electron pressure”. Then the ratio between the gas and electron pressure is:

 

P/P _e = 1 +  N _o / N_e

An alternative way of expressing the stellar gas equation of state is:

P = (r/ mH) kT =  r RT/ m

Where r is the gas density and m is the mean molecular weight, with H the mass of the hydrogen nucleus or about  1.7 x 10^-27 kg)

An expression for m in terms of the chemical composition of a star may be arrived at from a simple tabulation involving the number of atoms of the relevant elemental species and the numbers of free electrons arising from their respective ionizations.

 
We begin by noting that for any star we must have:


X + Y + Z = 1

Where X denotes the fraction of hydrogen, Y the fraction of helium, and Z the fraction of all the heavier elements.  The number of electrons and the number of atoms can then be set out for hydrogen (X), helium (Y), and heavier elements (Z).  For example, both the number of electrons and number of atoms is equal to:   Xr / H   In the case of hydrogen. Why? Well, because there is exactly one electron and one proton - no neutrons comprising it.  In the case of helium, the no. of atoms is: Yr / H   and the number of electrons can be written: 2Y r / H.   In the case of heavier elements, the no. of atoms can be written Zr / H  and the number of electrons as: ½AZr / H.  Therefore, we may write:

N (total) = (2X + 3Y/4 + ½Zr / H)

And finally, after simplifying, the mean molecular weight of the stellar gas-plasma is:

1/ m  =  (2X + 3Y/4 + ½Z)

 

For most stars to which we will apply the above equation of state, Z represents only a negligible fraction (e.g. in the Sun about 0.2% or 0.002)so we can therefore simplify further:

Thus, let Z = 1 – X – Y   so:

N(total) = r /H(2X + 3Y/4 + (1 – X – Y)/2)

 

N(total) = r /H (3X/2 + Y/4 + ½ ) = r /4H (6X + Y +2)   

Or:  m        = 4/ (6X + Y + 2)

This is a good approximation except in the cool, outermost layers of a star. Then since Z is negligible we may replace Y with (1 – X) and obtain:

m = 4/ (3 + 5X)

Problems for the budding astrophysics maven:

1)  In the atmosphere of a star at a particular layer, the temperature is 5650 K and there are approximately  1.45 x 10 ¹⁹ free electrons. If the total gas pressure is 8.3 x 10³ Pa find: a) the electron pressure, and b) the total number of neutral and ionized atoms.

2) Find the molecular weight at the bottom of the convection zone of a main sequence star for which X = 0.9 and Y = 0.1, approximately.

3)  Using the formula for the molecular weight, show that for electrons only: m = 2 / (1 + X).

The Anti-Vitamin Scolds Strike Again!

It was quite a sight to see and hear Dr. Emily Senay several mornings ago on 'Morning Joe' - evincing all the outrage of a displeased school marm whose kids refused to obey.

Following several apt questions from the small panel, she replied adamantly: "NO! Don't take your vitamins! They are doing more harm than good and people need to see the research that supports this!"

Oh really, doc? And what research might that be? Here's what we do know: Despite the fact those like Mrs. Senay have been yapping forever (it seems) - from inside assorted classrooms to media campaigns- that if we "eat the proper portions of fruits, grains, and veggies each and every day", we’ll be on the road to a life of optimum health- the facts don't bear that out.


Particularly over the past 100 years, we've altered the way we produce food so radically that we've actually removed too many vital nutrients that once, yes, were staples of our ancestors diets. And I should add, was a major reason they've not have had to take vitamins. See e.g.  http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2011/12/as-weve-suspected-our-nutritional.html

But studies published only in the last few years show our current produce selection is remarkably devoid of phyto- nutrients. These are the compounds that reduce the risk of cancer, diabetes and cardiovascular disease. The reason? With the advent of Corporate agriculture, we've systematically stripped phyto-nutrients from our diet and replaced crops bearing them with diluted GMO substitutes.

Part of the problem also has been corporate PR luring American tongues away from the earlier varieties of plants-crops with the highest amount of phyto-nutrients. A lot of this has to do with the other development, the emergence of fast food especially laden in sugars. The contra-indicator? Some of the best produce bearing highest phyto-nutrient content have bitter tastes!

As one example, take a look at corn.  Today,  we're conditioned to eat (and indeed only find available) the white and yellow varietes, so no blue corn is to be found. The crap we consume today (yellow and white corn) has from 1.54 mg to 70.2 mg of anthocyanins per 100 mg dried corn, compared to 99.5 mg of anthocyanins per milligram of dried corn available from blue corn.

If you're still not convinced, check out greens   . Most people into diet wholesomeness believe spinach is the healthiest food around today, but is it really? In fact, there are only 0.89 mg of anti-oxidants in fresh spinach compared to ordinary dandelion greens (which the Germans use in their salads) which had 6.89 mg anti-oxidants per 100 mg.

Still skeptical, then  look at apples .Most 'Muricans gravitate to a Granny Smith or Red Delicious apple - which contain 205 mg and 108 mg of phyto-nutrients per liter of juce, respectively. But the fact is the Siberian crab apple delivers 4,606 mg of phyto-nutrients per liter. If you really want to stay healthy and do away with vitamins, it's dandelion greens and Siberian crab apples you ought to be consuming - along with blue corn!

But since we aren't eating these things, we're not consuming anywhere near the level of anti-oxidants and phyto-nutrients we need - hence the ongoing need for vitamins, despite what Emily Senay claims.  The clear message that appears to have escaped her - even as she sought to lecture the morning audience on MSNBC- is that food production today (controlled by giant multi-nationals like Monsanto) aren't in the business of delivering healthy and wholesome foods - but making PROFITS!

Until the anti-vitamin brigade grasps that, and can prove to me that eating our diluted American produce means we can ditch the vitamins, I will remain a firm vitamin taker!

---------------

Footnote: It is true that there are certain vitamins ( A) where one is better advised to err on the side of much less than more. Interested readers can google "excess Vitamin A side effects" to learn more. It is also true that in some cases one can take too many yielding "urine waste". But if one properly researchers what one is taking and why this is much less likely to occur.