Month: February 2026

Ultraprocessed foods – essentially those boxed and wrapped in plastic, ready-to-eat items lining grocery store shelves. [Also widely used in fast food restaurants.]

Dr. David Kessler is the former commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. In the 1990s he helped expose how the tobacco companies manipulated nicotine levels to hook consumers. 

* Over the last 40 years, the United States has been exposed to something that our biology was never intended to handle. Energy-dense, highly palatable, rapidly absorbable, ultraprocessed foods that have altered our metabolism and have resulted in the greatest increase in chronic disease in our history. Type 2 diabetes, pre-diabetes, hypertension, abnormal lipids, fatty liver, heart attacks, stroke, heart failure.

* The scale of this [consumption of ultraprocessed foods compared to smoking]– this affects everybody. Understand, not everybody smoked. But look at the number of people who consume ultraprocessed food. It touches all of us.

* Processed refined carbohydrates – sweeteners and starches such as corn syrup and maltodextrin – are so rapidly absorbed in our system that it caused metabolic havoc. – they target the brain reward circuits that keep us coming back for more. They, they trigger overeating. They deprive us of any sense of fullness. — those calories are not just empty. They’re ending up in your liver, and that fat in your liver is gonna migrate into other organs. And it’s the cause of cardiometabolic disease.

* Pick up any one of these products. You ever look at the– the ingredient label? [A lot are things we cannot pronounce.]

* Is that food? Corn syrup, corn solids, maltodextrin, dextrose, xylose, high-fructose corn syrup. And then these ingredients were subjected to industrial processing so that our system can’t handle it. 

* We changed how this country views tobacco. We need to change how this country views these ultraprocessed foods.

* I’d like them to understand the consequences of what they are doing and to do something about it.

Source

Click on the 3-bars & try WELLNESS, or try FITNESS. Be very careful b/c they often try to sell you stuff. But there is lots of great info!

https://www.tomsguide.com/

Feb 14, 2026

California students unprepared for college, thanks to state’s standardized testing move
Fox News Digital spoke to Long Beach State Economics professor Andrea Mays about the impact on students after SAT requirements were scrapped in California.

A California economics professor is sounding the alarm on the “deficits in learning” she is seeing in the classroom, arguing that the decision to scrap standardized testing in the name of “inclusivity” is actually a disservice to the students it claims to help.

Cal State Long Beach professor Andrea Mays told Fox News Digital that the current cohort of college students, many of whom spent their formative middle school years in online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic, are arriving on campus unprepared for basic coursework.

Mays spoke to Fox News Digital about the state’s university system’s decision to scrap the SAT as a requirement for college admission as playing a large role in that and that it has led to students coming to college unprepared and dropping out at higher rates.

Mays says the drop rate is up “phenomenally” and that chairs of other departments tell her it’s widespread, with 25% of students dropping classes, with math being a key area where students are coming in underprepared.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/cal-state-prof-warns-scrapping-sat-name-inclusivity-leaving-students-unprepared