"I have a patient who weighed 222 pounds and it was obvious to me she wasn't very happy," says Dr. Rollins, an OB/GYN from West Virginia. "I began talking to her about weight loss and ultimately she began using the products. Recently I saw her and she weighed 134 pounds. It is an incredible thing, because her life has changed. She is energetic and goes to the gym. I have a number of women who have lost 70 to 80 pounds and that's incredible!"

So on a recent evening, a group of shoppers gathered at the Whole Foods Market in Duluth, an expansive shrine of abundance with a gelato bar, cooked-to-order seafood and hand-dipped chocolates, on a hunt for value.
At Whole Foods stores around the country, including Harry's Farmers Market stores in Alpharetta and Marietta, similar tours are scheduled several times over the next few months.

Bargains in the land of $50 bottles of olive oil and grass-fed beef tenderloin at $30 a pound? Suspend disbelief and come along on the tour.

"We know sometimes there is a perception out there that Whole Foods is an expensive place to shop," marketing team leader Kubeshini Moodley tells a small group of regular shoppers. "I wanted to show you some of the tricks of the trade I use to feed my family."

One of the ironies of the Scottish diet is that people who live in rural areas often have the least access to fresh food, particularly high-value fish and seafood, which is exported, while even basic foods become more expensive away from the main centres of population. New regulations to introduce nutritional requirements for food and drink in schools are a positive step towards changing the next generation's understanding of nutrition, and emphasising sustainability and seasonal produce in government catering contracts is welcome evidence of the government willing to lead by example.

Reform of regulations on country-of origin-labelling should end the current confusion over whether a product, such as salmon, has been produced in Scotland or merely processed in Scotland. That is an anomaly which works against the interests of consumers and genuine Scottish producers, and should be easily overcome.

Booming business for self-employed garment seller Qiao Sheng in Qianqiao town, Anqing, Anhui province, has not only been fattening his bank account by the week, but also enriched his family's dinner table.

"I grew up mostly on salted vegetables - made without oil - during my childhood," said Qiao, in his 40s.

"Now, as life gets better, I want my children to be better fed, stronger and healthier."

Many in town seem to share Qiao's sentiments.

SUMMER’S GLORIES
Peaches, and their close kin nectarines, are one of summertime’s greatest glories. These look-alikes share appearances and flavors, but with a small difference. Nectarines have a smooth skin and are slightly smaller. Nectarines are not a cross between a plum and a peach, as some people think. Nectarines are also not considered the “queen” of fruits, as peaches are. And they are not synonymous with the great state of Georgia. Do you ever hear people talk about sweet Georgia nectarines? Didn’t think so.

Vendors set up their booths selling everything from early summer vegetables, grass-fed buffalo and elk, and farm-fresh milk and eggs, to cut flowers, fresh baked bread, homemade soap, jewelry, and bedding plants.

According to market President Sue Whittlesey, participating vendors all live and work within 200 miles of Ridgway and nothing is shipped from out of state. Buyers can learn all they need to know about the food for sale by simply asking the person who grew it.

Much of the produce for the market is grown in the North Fork Valley around Paonia, Hotchkiss and Delta, as well as near Olathe and Montrose. “We try to get a couple of farmers from the Grand Junction area. Their climate is more conducive to growing, so they can provide fresh vegetables and fruit earlier in the season,” Whittlesey said. Many farmers spend their weekends traveling to regional markets, providing mountain towns with much appreciated produce.

Researchers from Harvard and the Universidad Autonoma de Madrid used 20 years of surveys from two groups of health professionals to draw their conclusion: death does not come any sooner for those who drink more coffee.

"I think the main conclusion is that, for those coffee drinkers, they can be quite sure that coffee doesn't increase their risk of death," said Esther Lopez-Garcia, the study's lead author.

So, time to break out the Folgers or head over to Starbucks, right?

Not so fast. People love drinking coffee the National Coffee Association estimates that the United States imported almost 6 million bags in the last three months of 2006 alone; so, coffee, like red wine or dark chocolate, is a popular choice for these kinds of studies.

Prices of food, especially of agricultural products, will continue to rise, making it difficult for China to hit this year's 4.8 percent inflation target, a senior government economist said in remarks published on Monday.

Yao Jingyao, chief economist of the National Bureau of Statistics, was also quoted by the China Business News as saying that surging upstream prices would eventually pass through to the cost of consumer goods.

A spike in food prices since the middle of last year has boosted consumer inflation to near 12-year highs, while factory-gate prices have also accelerated in recent months. They rose 8.1 percent in the year to April.

"Imported inflation will put major pressure on overall prices," Yao said, noting sky-high global grain and oil prices.

But he also said prices for industrial goods would gradually drop due to improved technology and management.

To read the Internet ads, you'd think that our bodies were awash in "toxins" - usually unspecified - and that we should therefore go to dramatic lengths, like "colon cleansing" and chelation to get rid of all this bad stuff.

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Don't believe it. Or, to put it a bit more gently, don't risk your health or your pocketbook on programs that promise to "detoxify" you, without at least doing lots of homework first. Like asking exactly what these supposed "toxins" are. And thinking twice - or 20 times - before undergoing chelation, a procedure that uses powerful drugs to rid your body of heavy metals such as mercury or lead.

"Whole grains are very healthy and we advocate eating them if you can digest them," say Bager and Lass. But "people with a number of health conditions have seemed to benefit from the SCD."

What is the Specific Carbohydrate Diet?
In the early 20th century, a group of doctors studying celiac disease -- Drs. Sidney and Merrill Haas in particular -- created The Specific Carbohydrate Diet. The doctors noticed that celiac patients became ill when they ate carbohydrates. Over time, the doctors developed a diet that primarily excludes complex carbohydrates (such as grains and starchy vegetables) and for the majority of patients, their symptoms went into remission. The doctors also reported that 82.5 per cent of the 561 children they treated were completely cured of celiac disease. Elaine Gottschall, author of Breaking the Vicious Cycle: Intestinal Health Through Diet (Kirkton Press, 1994), developed the modern version of SCD after Dr. Sidney Haas successfully treated Gottschall's daughter's ulcerative colitis with the diet.