This is an interesting area. I have recently had some foods tested for mercury levels using a mercury vapout analyser. Eggs chicken and some vegetables produced quite high results. The highest though strangely enough was tomato puree at 280 mg per cubic meter. The dental office itself scored less than 10 mg.

their is no evidence that the vapour analyser is accurate or effecient. If It was everyone would be using it(Why dont more people use it?). I wish everyone would stop worrying and letting this consume you as stress about it anletting it absorb you or take over youe thoughts can cause symptoms.

If eggs, chicken, vegetables and tomatoes are off the hitlist, then we can turn the candida diet into a don't eat anything diet.

I've heard the vapour analyser also picks up high sulphur levels, so it could be the sulphur level and not mercury.

If you anon have evidence that mercury analysers dont work post it. They are very technical pieces of equipment that are i believe used mainly in the area of assessing occupational exposure. If they didnt work then it would not be possible to measure mercury in the environment and nobody would have been able set a limit let on say occupational mercury exposure alone monitor to see whether it is exceded or not.

Secondly i am not sitting around worrying about this. I feel ill and want to do what i can to help myself as i assume others do on this site. I have come to realise that some of my symptoms are related to what i eat. I eat certain things and feel worse. One of the reasons why i believe this to be the case is of the high mercury content in certain foods. If this information is useful to anyone then all well and good if not dont take it on.

We used a mercury vapor analyzer for our experiments and it happens to be the same make and model the EPA uses for it's measurements.

Anonymous is probably reading to much of the Quackwatch website which is funded by the NCAHF which is a disinformation front for the pharmaceutical industry:

http://www.bolenreport.net/

The fraudulent Quackwatch website is the only place on the web that I found information about mercury vapor analyzers being inaccurate. Of course, I'm sure it will show up on more disinformation websites soon enough.

Remember, the pharmaceutical industry pays people to write bad reviews on important books, and to poison and cause division on forums such as this. I'm not saying Anonymous is one of them, I'm just saying that you never know.

But I say, bring it on. The more disinformation they post, the more rebuttals I have an opportunity to post.

Remember, attacking the accuracy of mercury vapor meters is a last ditch effort because there is nothing more to try and discredit about mercury and it's wide distribution.

Also, if the original post in this thread meant to say that these measurements showed 12 milligrams per cubic meter, that's a lot of mercury; A whole lot of mercury.

We might need some clarification about the unit of measure.

Thanks.

Certain foods made me feel lousy when i was real sick too. But it was because i was sick, I guess a reaction between the food and the mercury, or whatever the mercury was doing to me.

A cubic meter of tomato puree is an awful lot of puree. Exactly how do you eat that? With a wheel barrow full of spaghetti? Just kidding heh. What brand was that? I'll stay away from it.

you can get organic food at the health food store, may cost an extra dollar today but will save you a hundred at the dr's downline. I actually worry more about the arsenic in non-organic chicken and eggs.

Quite possible those foods tested high btw, probably sprayed with a mercury containing fungicide to keep em on the grocery store shelf longer.

it's not actually the foods, it's the stuff they spray on it, pretty sure.

Out of interest were the foods you tested organic?

Thanks
Phil

I am sure it was/is micrograms not mg my mistake.

Some of these things are organic. Apparently sulphurus vegestables like onions garlic etc can draw mercury from the soil which makes them get a high reading. Also fertilizers can apparantly have things like fish waste in them which can be high in mercury. If anyone knows anymore about this please post.

I believe you are right Richard and that the fertilizer is where a lot a the mercury comes from in the sulphurous veg, so even organic ain't so good if it was fertilized with chicken droppings, being that a lot a chickens are fed from fish products and the hg is in a more concentrated form in the poop. I only use high quality horse ordure but I don't rightly know how much better that is, just feel kinda better about it lookin at what all horses eat.I make sometimes a fertilizer/ soil treatment from steeped comfrey and maybe nettles...
I'm thinkin biodynamically produced food is better than organic ,but then in America y'all can buy organic food thats been genetically modified for cryin out loud!

oh, and my local food co-op just got lots a those new fangled torture light bulbs I can't abide even bein in the same room with and I'm just gettin primed to leave them a little truth bomb about how all they are gonna dispose a those dang poison vessels and what hell breaks loose if they was to bust one.
Can't see em throwin out all their stock or gettin the merc busters in to do a clean up neither.
Well, have the best day possible folks, considerin what all we know,thats a tall order sometimes.

sosick just to clarify. The measurement of the tomato puree does not relate to the volume of the puree itself but to the amount of vapour it gives off

It's amazing what people worry about. Amazing. Terrorism (what do you have, a 1 in 100 million chance of getting hurt by a terrorist?). Their kids smoking pot or having sex. But mercury in their mouths or in the air? Eh, whatever, ya gotta live and not worry, right?

A friend here in the office told me she's scared of germs on the subway. When I told her she should be more scared of the amalgams in her mouth, she told me I was crazy.

She hasn't been disillusioned yet. the day will surely come.

Richard, check your fungicides, I am sure that is the culprit. Tomatoes farmed commercially are sure to be sprayed with it, in the field. Commercial chicken feed is treated with fungicides, and arsenic btw. I have given some thought to fish fetrtilizers, because I use them myself. But the amount of mercury in fish doesn't come close to the amount of mercury and other metals/toxins in fungicides. Even horse or cow manure can contain fungicide residues from the feed.

Fungicides penetrate a good way into the fruit, veg, grain, and residues stay there. You shouldn't eat the skin of anything non-organic you buy at the grocery store, always peel a good 1/16 to 1/8 of an inch off the potato or whatever, if heavily sprayed even that may not be enough. When they make things like tomatoe puree they throw the whole fruit in there you can count on it. there is not assembly line of workers peeling anything, the thin skin wouldn't protect against penetration from the fungicide anyway.

I should really stop using fish fertilzer and get manure from the rancher down the road, he does not use fungicides, I need to talk to him.

Welcome to life in the 21st century. Learn to deal with toxins or suffer.

What a life. I am grouchy this morn. A friend called and told me a friend of his, who was a well known natural health dr, died recently of pancreatic cancer after having her amalgams removed.

I think this may be a coincedence and I have wondered if getting mine out made my cancer grow faster. But I doubt it, it was more likely the long exposure I had from not getting them out sooner. But if they were not removed properly, the added burden may have accelerated her cancer, and mine too. My cancer seemed to grow faster after I had my first root canal/cavitation done. It was a pretty botched job and I think that tipped the scales in the cancer's favor.

But I am still going to fight, according to doctors, it is incurable, but I might just prove otherwise!!! And live on to expose more and more of the rdestruction that modern medicine is doing to mankind.

Sandi
xoxo

I think I may just rent the mercury vapor meter again for a day and test all sorts of stuff. If anyone has suggestions, I'm open.

You better keep fighting, your testimony is invaluable. Someone told me once that the personality type of people who beat cancer is usually angry, fiesty and b_tchy. Fight it! Be stronger than it is and do not ever accept it. One thing i do not do is get tested for cancer, stuff like that. Xrays, what have you, I don't want them. I figure I always have something and the type of methods/doctors that treat this stuff are more dangerous than the disease a lot ofthe time (in their ignorance, greed and haste) They don't really know me and I truly have difficulty believing they really care about me. My mother died of cancer, she followed her doctor's advice. She was a prescription junkie pill popper doctor worshipper. She got worse and worse, one of them almost killed her very early on even with a medication she was allergic to. Still she kept going back, maybe just didn't know any better, couldn't see beyond the box. She had spent her life as a registered nurse. She was one of the most unhealthiest people I ever knew, since I can remember. She laughed at my whole foods and organic diet, till one day, when she was very sick and beyond repair, she started asking about it. Sad.

Praying for you.

the lady with the pancreatic cancer, from what I understand she did not chelate after amalgam removal. She only used nutrition, and obviously failed somewhere. Maybe she was a soy eater. i don't know her, never heard of her, but have her name, I am going to look her up.

I must admit I felt like a cancer slug when i was real sick, i still have moments of it but doubtful i will ever see a doctor regarding it. I eat plum pits and stuff instead. Throw the lemon with the seeds into the smoothie... my doctor uses high megadoses of IV vitamin C ascorbic acid (up to 100 grams/session) to treat cancer patients, most go into remisssion but not all. Hyperbolic oxygen also.

Russ i think thats a really good idea. It would be interesting to test all kinds of food stuff. Its stange but in the detox community there seems to be alot of talk about getting mercury out of the body but not much awareness about what is still going in. Any effective detox should surely address both especially if improvements are very slow going.

I also had Brocolli and Cauliflower tested and these came up high which supports the theory that sulphur veges draw in mercury. Most other vegetables apart from the tomto puree that i mentioned earlier were low. I did however find an organic tomato puree that came out quite low. Fish is supposed to be high but i tested some wild artic salmon which was very low. Apparently farmed salmon is high because of mercury in fish feed. Some more testing on this would be interesting.

I think the point that dental holocaust made about sulphur setting off the machine could also be tested to see whether this is true or not. I dont know if you can get your hands on some sulphur. Also if you are going to test foods they seem to give off higher readings if the food is heated. Dont know if heat itself effects the machine or whether more mercury is released in vapour when heated. So that would be interesting to clarify.

Also any supplements would be interesting to check out

That might be enough to start with

It is silly to use a hg vapor meter to measure hg levels in food . It is far more accurate to simply measure the number of micrograms in a given food item . In any case , I think one's total hg exposure from food assuming you don't eat fish high in hg such as Chilean sea bass is two micrograms/day or less,insignificant compared to amalgam exposure.
Pancreatic cancer has a strong genetic basis .Many of President Jimmy Carter's family members and mine have died of pancreatic cancer.
Are hg fungicides stillused ? I thought they were used on grain rather than vegetables.

Many researchers believe that mercury does not cause cancer because the mutations it causes kill cells before they become cancerous.
If I had cancer I would probably do a one or two week fast and then do a one week fast every few monthes

jill honey where were ya?As to the cancer fast, all the folks I knew who did that are pushin up daisies, pretty good ones though.

IF it was easy for me to test the mercury levels in foods i would do so. Testing the mercury vapour content of foods is what i have available. And since mercury can give of vapour whether it is in the mouth, environment or food what is 'silly' about that Jill. If you can test the mercury content of foods please post the results i would be interested to see.

I have found that i am very senitive to mercury itself and react to it in foods. #So anything that gives me an indication that mercury may be present to a significant degree is helpful. Trial and error or relying on what the food industry tell me about their foods isnt satisfactory

Right on Ricardo!

I agree Richard.

Although it would be helpful to know exactly how much mercury is in a food, because mercury vaporizes, if you find mercury vaporizing from food, it's a pretty good indication that something is really wrong.

It is useful information.

Thanks for the kind words of encouragement and prayers and info SoSick. Please let me know how the lady with pancreatic is doing if you reach her. I intend to fight and not use anymore chemicals. I think you are right, more people die from chemo and drugs than the cancer itself.

We have to look after ourselves, we certainly can't trust the medical profession, that is why I am so nervous about the upcoming surgery....I really wish I could just skip it!!!! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />

Sandi
xoxo

Thanks Russ and Elvis. I am coming to the conclusion from the testing i have been doing that mercury seems to be in quite of lot of different foods in varying degrees. No wonder it is hard for some people to get well. I guess this effects some more that others which may be related to how quickly we excrete. Id like to know more about how it gets in there maybe this will come to light the more people ask questions. Becoming aware of this issue can be threatening id rather it all just went away or somebody just sorted it out. But when money is involved this seems less likely to just happen.

I also noticed feeling much more sensitive after going on an anti candida diet. Which makes some sense to me. If as some say candida protects the gut from mercury being absorbed and damaged by it, then reducing candida may take away some of that protection. It think this is what may have happened to me.

HI Richard, for me the candida tended to smother the problem and I was far sicker with it combining with the mercury.

less candida made me much more aware of any mercury exposure, but I was far more stable as well. My body seemed to alert me to it more readily, whereas before it was me suffering so much toxicity at once, I didn't know what was doing what.

Candida does not help with mercury with myself. It makes it WORSE for many people. Sandi is another example, as I am too. Candida methylates mercury and makes it more toxic, it also absorbs it and holds the toxins in much more. Seeming to protect, it just overloads the gut and liver, gives off its own toxins and combines with mercury to lower immunity even more.

At least that's my experience and what I have read. Maybe some people are not so bad eating sugar, but at any rate, sugar lowers immunity, slows healing, feeds yeast, and harms the body in many other ways. Reducing yeast, by allowing the body to do it naturally by giving it a chance through diet is natural and the yeast will only reduce to a more tolerable level. There will always be yeast there in the presence of heavy metals and lowered immunity, but at least if you help the body with diet, your body has a bit of a stronger chance against it flourishing out of control.

Antifungals maybe the problem, they kill of yeast aggressively, many at once, releasing their toxic loads in great amounts, heavy metals can be included. So they can be risky.

As for the candida diet? it's simply a healthy diet for anybody, and helps the body to heal regardless of ones condition.

Hi Bex, I am not convinced that an anti candida diet such as the type Bee advocates is necessarily healthy for mercury toxic people. I think taking out refined sugars and refined carbohydrates, dairy, yeast and gluten if you have a problem with it, is likely to be a good thing for ones health and in keeping Candida at a managable level. But Bee's diet is extreme and excludes things like fruit, nuts, a lot of vegetables and even rice and recommends a lot of meat eating which has its own health implications. Also is seems that meats fish and eggs as well as certain sulphorus and other vegetables contain elevated levels of mercury which may undermine the detox process, especially for those who very sensitive to mercury like myself.

Hi Richard, well Bee's diet actually has plenty of vegetables that can be eaten...it's just a change from the usual potatoes, corn and pumpkin, beans people might have (which I enjoyed). Instead it's more broccoli, alfalafa, tomatoe, onions, garlic, lettuce, cauliflower, cabbage, celery, cucumber etc. Lemons and tomatoes are also allowed and are both fruit also, just not "sweet".

I think it looks bad at first becuase it seems extreme, but it is often necessary for those with a more extreme case of yeast. For me, until I was more serious on this diet, I could not absorb nutrients enough and found I couldn't gain weight.
Once on her diet more fully (not perfectly, still eating some raw nuts and acidophilus yoghurt), I managed to finally gain some weight.

One gets more than enough energy on her diet, in fact many claim much more than they had previously on higher carb diets and I do see people improve on this diet.

The high sulfur is basically hard to avoid I guess in anybody's natural diet. I am very allergic to mercury and I dont notice an issue with eggs so much, other than if I have had an exposure to mercury I may find high sulfur foods can mobilise it too readily. I don't overdo the sulfur foods all at once.

I dont know, I do believe in her diet, seen so many results on the forum of hers though temporarily people have problems because of the healing. But you're right in that perhaps some may find it too extreme and may want to modify it according to their needs. And some people are lucky enough to be able to still include some high carb foods like some fruit and grain. For me? I had no choice.

Also, the extreme nature of it is for the intial stages and then one can add a few things back in later as they improve. it doesn't have to stay so strict, but it's wise to keep up leaving out the direct sugars, glutens, etc and excessive carbs/fruit indefinitely.
but again, some people on here may not have such a candida problem and may not need to go that far. I do unfortunately. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />

I dont know about eggs containing mercury? Fish yes, but normal meats? I mean Hal Huggins warns against the vegetarian type diets for a mercury poisoned person. He admits so far in his career, he has not been able to cure a vegetarian from mercury poisnoning for reasons he's yet to understand. He says they do better on more proteins like eggs and meats (beef, turkey, chicken) and fats like butter. (not forgetting the addition of vegetables too) for proper healing and hormones etc.

And doing without sugar, caffeine, gluten, wheat, milk etc....though I haven't heard him mention some fruit, or some gluten free grain as being an issue. But with candida, one still has to watch their carb intake. It's just the way it is with candida. It's not picky about where it gets its sugars. Honey is another one that gets me!

Eggs and various meats including sulphur vegetables do contain mercury.This has been shown to be true to me from repeated tests using a mercury vapour analyser. On this basis I think it is wise to eat these things with caution and to look at avoiding eating them if problems still persist. A diet that relies heavily on them may be detrimental to recovery. It is possible to get certain fish and probably purely corn and grass fed animals which may have very little mercury in them.

Any corn fed animal will have mercury, from the fungicides and pesticides used on the feed. also arsenic.

It's important to keep in mind that even if something is labeled 'organic', grown in the US or someplace where mercury or other toxins (unavoidable) in fungicides or pesticides is supposedly illegal, that that is not a guarantee of anything. Organic farms are popular now, but that is a recent trend. The same land that is now farmed 'organically' may have been farmed with heavy duty pesticides and fungicides up until just a few short years ago and the soil will remain contaminated for a long time. If vegetables are shipped from Mexico or elsewhere and then processed in the US there also is no guarantee as to quality in that regard.

Beef and chicken labled 'organic fed, no hormones, no antibiotics' is about the best i am able to find, and I am always aware that that does not guarantee 100% free simply because of toxin remnants in soil and elsewhere. I should go fishing more, there are rainbow trout right outside my door and I have been ignoring them. Where we live, the water is pretty clean, very clean matter of fact, on a mountain. But, down below us, about 50 miles away, they have issued mercury warnings about eating the fish from the lakes. Could be power plants, dental offices, even farmers doing the polluting, hard to say.

2 yrs ago i was eating tuna daily thinking it was good for me, well i know now and its too late, i think il always be taking ALA or DMSA just so mercury doesnt build up again, we are eating and breathing mercury daily.

We only know a fraction of what happens/goes into our food. I am reminded of something that happened in the UK not so long ago. A criminal gang were getting hold of rotting and condemed chicken meat soaking in bleach, removing the rotting flesh and repackaging it and selling it to the supermarket chains. It was so widespread that if you ate chicken at all you were very likely to have bought and eaten some of this meat. This was found out about eventually what else goes on that we dont get to hear about ???

Is that 280 milligrams or 280 micrograms/m3 ? There is a huge difference 10-3 vs 10-6..
Both figures are absurdly high. How much tomato puree allegedly produced these levels?Either level of hg vapor exposure would result in one absorbing thousands of micrograms of hg /day .This is ridiculous. Most people are exposed to only a couple micrograms/day from food so there is no reason to avoid high sulfur high cysteine foods like eggs, onions, garlic etc.

Russ,
Who funds quackbusters?

The units of measurement were micrograms per cubic meter. The mercury vapour analyser used detects mercury vapour. If mercury vapour is not present in a substance or in the environment it will measure zero. Mercury in food is a concern especially those who are very sensitive to it. I have found recently that when i avoid foods that have given off a high vapour reading my health is much better, and when i eat these foods its much worse. I suggest that anyone who is struggling to get on top of their health to give it a try and see if it makes a difference. I would be happy to talk to anyone more about it.

According to Tim Bolen, the NCAHF—another pharmaceutical misinformation front—does.

I can tell you that I've found lies on the Quackbuster website and have written a rebuttal about one of the many lies. I wrote this long before I knew of their dark history.

For anyone interested, I would highly recommend checking out the Tim Bolen website for more information.

Righton? How about way off?
If the mercury vapor level in the ambient air is .3 micrograms/m3,you will absorb approx. 4 micrograms of hg/day from this hg vapor.If the hg vapor level is 250 micrograms/m3,you would absorb over 830 micrograms/day from a few tomatoes alone. That's absurd.
If we are all absorbing thousands of micrograms of hg /day from food, we might as well save our money and not remove our amalgams since they represent an insignificant source of hg exposure relative to food. In reality ,you probably only get one microgram of hg from food per day unless you eat certain types of fish.For a bunch of tomatoes to produce hg vapor levels that high in a room , they must contain tens of thousands of microgmsof hg.
Those are some scary tomatoes. I suggest you get someone you don't like to drive those toxic tomatoes to a different state.

The higher you go on the food chain ,the higher the level of pesticides . Therefore ,there are higher pestcide levels in meat than in vegetables. Even so called organic meat typically has high pesticide levels since pesticides are so pervasive in the environment.

Not neccesarily, depends where you get your meat and veggies. Generally large scale commercial farm products and caged corn fed meats are the ones you want to avoid most. That would include zillions of processed food products also. Large scale, very large scale organic farms probably do have posioned land, poisoned over decades of non-organic use prior. Not neccesarily true for smaller farms. Also, not all pesticides persist in the environment for any length of time. I think even, most don't. Freshly sprayed crops can of course posion rivers etc but that ends when the spraying ends, likewise in the soil, after short time. However, corn especially, grains used for feed, are often sprayed with pesticide while in the barn to keep insects from ruining the crop while in storage. And then of course the worst thing, fungicides, also used the same way, and in the field, and which can persist for some time. Supposedly, organic fed chicken (chicken naturally are corn/seed eaters, cows are not) is not fed pesticide sprayed corn.

Grass fed beef is probably the closest you'll get to safe in my estimation. Grasses, oats, clover, whatever, aren't generally sprayed with pesticides when used for cattle feed, unlike corn. When used for rolled oats for human consumption it may be a different matter though. Pests in grasses are eaten by the cattle everyday, it's not a problem, it's a small source of protein even... anyway I have never seen a field of grass or oats grown for cattle feed sprayed by farmers anywhere. Why bother.

Richard your research is a very good reminder, and I thank you. I will no longer be buying tomatos, canned or fresh. I have a big garden and put in extra to can plenty of my own (pesticide free) for winter this year.

Think I have a little bit of everything in there, canning up lots...

My cilantro soup was pretty good today. Yes I did it! I am going to continue also. I have run into research/claims repeatedly that say cilantro is the best mercury mobilizer on earth, better than most pharmaceuticals even. I feel good so wouldn't have started with it otherwise. I am going to eat that for lunch all week.

I am taking chlorella also and the dmsa formula with it to bind up. Also eating hommous with plenty of garlic with that routine (actually put some garlic in the cilantro soup, it was yummy, onion, carrots). And drinking lots of water, in case you ask.

I wonder also about the growth hormone injections and antibiotics they give corporate farmed cattle, probably those injections have mercury in them also. Though some antibiotics are mixed with grain/corn but i think the growth hormones are usually an injection. Gross stuff caged cattle and chicken.

Sandi: Thought this would make you happy....My biological dentist told me that the world's best renowned cancer centers all have the same rule: You have to get the mercury fillings removed first before they will begin treatment, then they deal with your diet, medications and supplements. Doing what you are doing is the best way to go....My prayers are with you. Gabriella

From Dr Hesham El-Essawy.



Many thanks Richard for your intelligent observations and remarks. I also note that on your own initiative you tested water alone and that read zero mercury.

As to the confusion about sulphur content, I tested sulphur alone and in MSM and it gave a reading of 13. The sulphur content does ‘confuse’ the machine but only to a little extent. That is why in my food testing for mercury vapour I put an arbitrary ‘allowed’ level of 20. It is very hard to find food that is totally free from mercury in UK, and that is totally due to the fertiliser used even on organic food produce. The mercury in food is not due to the produce itself of course. I recently tested some locally grown garlic, chicken and eggs while on my lecture tour in Egypt and found that they all read zero mercury. The difference is in the fertiliser.

The mercury content of food depends on the presence of sulphur, and ironically perhaps, it is sulphur that helps absorb mercury out of the fertiliser or whatever into the food and it is also sulphur that binds to it and prevents it from doing the damage it can otherwise do.

We always notice that the mercury readings in our patients’ mouths become even higher after amalgam removal, meanwhile, the patients symptoms are improving steadily. That means that mercury from amalgam is highly damaging but mercury from food is not as damaging because it is combined with sulphur. Higher readings of mercury after the amalgam removal are also due in part to excretion through the expired air and the saliva, also through the crevicular fluid.

We have learned a great deal through carefully trying to interpret these results. We noticed that if the patient sticks carefully to our NONO LIST of avoiding mercury-rich food he or she does not get high readings post-op. so the link with mercury in food is established in my view. Richard tells us that when he stopped eating the foods that he tested high in mercury he felt the improvement immediately, and I could not be happier for him as he truly suffered.

He also made a very intelligent observation, which is that he felt more sensitive after following the Candida diet, and felt really bad when he took an anti-Candida drug. The reason behind that is that the yeast does absorb mercury and that is why the gut mucosa encourages the Candida to grow. This means that those with Candida should not start to fight it hard till after they get rid of mercury from their teeth (not just from the fillings) and as much as possible from their food. This observation will be labelled in my book as ‘the Richard sign’.

Another important point worthy of mention here is that, before we start to mobilise any toxin from the body we must make sure that the exit gates, i.e. excretion channels, are open, otherwise we will have a problem. This means work on supporting the liver, the colon and on the kidneys.

I do not know about mercury in pesticides. I shall try to read some in the near future.

The word ‘organic’ have absolutely no bearing on mercury content. Perhaps the soil association should take note of that and sorts this problem out for us, as food fertilised with chicken droppings is ‘perfectly’ Organic according to the guidelines of that association. If you are looking for foods that are low in mercury you will have to look at bio or bio-dynamic food produce that test very low in mercury in our experience.

There are a lot to learn about this, and although we have been working on the problem for 17 years, we are learning new things all the time.

Best wishes to all.

Hesham El-Essawy.
www.el-essawy.com
hesham@el-essawy.com

On further reflection I can see that you have a point Jill. The amount of vapour that is being recorded is very high and does need clarifying to check for accuracy.

Organic and bio-dynamic refer to the same things in regard to farming, they are virtually equivalent. Look it up. Chicken droppings generally aren't relied upon in agriculture, organic or non, except as incidental. A serious farmer with crops for sale doesn't want chickens in his garden pecking at the tomatoes and squashes anyway so you can safely rule that out.. Surely though, incidental chicken droppings would have less toxicity than even the best cow manure.

Don't quote me in your book, do some research or try a garden for first hand experience so you don't get laughed at too hard.

I won't tell you what organic farmers use to keep bacteria off their veggies headed to market, that's a secret.

Naw, organic and bio-dynamic ain't the same at all,look it up, in more detail.
Bio-dynamic is the Rolls Royce a food growing, whole different kettle a carrots.Y'all prolly don't have too much a this method in the good ol USA, they are farming methods from ( amongst others) Rudolph Steiner and use a whole bunch a different ways, most relevant in this case is the fertilization methods.
Ya know a lot, so sick, but not everthang.

Dr El Essaway,
Welcome to the attack of the killer tomatoes forum.
What type of doctor are you? Why do you agree with Richard? Why don't you tell us how many micrograms of mercury one would absorb per day if one breathed air that had 280 micrograms of hg/m3?Then tell us roughly how many micrograms /day of hg are absorbed by someone with a dozen fillings.All of the scientific evidence shows that we absorb about one microgm/day from food.The way scientists test food for hg is obviously to determine the amount of hg in a food rather than test the hg vapor in the air.
You say that peoples hg vapor levels in their mouths go up after amalgam removal . From what I've read they only go up for a short time and then go down and remain dramatically lower.
I don't think that hg has been used in fungicides or any pesticides in many years.Pestices are found in high levels in high fat animal products. 25% of black girls in the US are in puberty at age seven and this is likely due the estrogenic effect of pesticides.This is alarming . We already have many eleven year old mothers . Maybe one day soon , we will have nineteen year old grandmothers.

Dr El- essawy,
What is crevicular fluid?

It's a fancy name for the same thing Elvis. Look it up yourself. The fertilization methods, cow manure? Is this new? Wake up.

This could also be caused by the enormous addition of soy products to our menu over the past couple decades, and also by the enormous use of plastics.

Just a thought.

For those of you with a less opinionated nature who might be thinkin mercury in food, especially sulpherous ones,have an adverse effect on ya, the bio-dynamic foods, especially onions, garlic,leeks, poultry...are the ones to go for.
This is because a the different approach to fertilization, use of soil remedies to cut down on pests, cosmic cycles for planting, (moon based especially) etc.
I get it so sick, y'all see Hesham El-Essawys name on somethin an ya gotta dis it. It ain't Islamic planting, ok?Welp, maybe it is, don't rightly know or care, it's just a very sophisticated and even spiritual approach to food growing which does produce consistently higher quality food. Also, organic certification, particularly in the US is highly suspect in certain aspects.
I try not to comment on somethin if I don't have the first hand knowledge, I don't need to look it up, I know this subject an ya clearly don't. Let other folks have the benefit a makin an informed choice.
Y'a ll seem to know about one thing though, so sick, an thats manure.

Has anyone tried a 50/50 mix of cilantro and chlorella liquid tincture to start the chelation process. I read even if you start taking probiotics, you will start to chelate mercury because it will kill the yeast, and yeast protects your body from mercury...there is mercury around the yeast. This die off will then lead to reactions and more problems / pain, as mercury enters the blood. I guess its a real good idea to be taking lots of fiber too.....flaxmeal/oatmeal etc

http://www.jashbotanicals.com/products/simple-chelate-heavy-metal-detoxification-p-44.html


After a few months then add in: amino acids- cysteine, taurine, selenium, zinc, vitamin c, milk thistle -for liver, horsetail for kidneys, aloe vera juice 2oz before bed if constipated(worked great for me)

No Elvis, you really are incorrect. And contrary to your opinion, one might surmise you or your dentist see my name on something and want to diss it.

Years and years ago Elvis, maybe it still exists, I really don't know, there was a little book called the Farmers Almanac. It gave times for planting, even fishing, according to moon cycles also. This is nothing new, my own grandfather swore by it. Years and years ago Elvis, cow manure was used to fertilize fields, just like 'bio-dynamic' farming recommends to day. This is nothing new. Again, it is the knowledge of our grandfathers revisted. Years and years ago Elvis, farmers rotated their crops so as not to wear out the fields, and even, as the bible recommends, let the field rest in the seventh year. This is nothing new. These methods are as old as human history, and are even written of in the bible. You are in fact correct on one point, when you say it is not islamic planting. It is very much biblical planting, and stewardship of the earth. These things are and have been practiced by organic farmers for many many years. Organic is even just a fancy term for natural farming like your grandfather did it, in that regard.

Perhaps, Elvis, the problem lies not in the fact that I know manure, but rather in the fact that you do not know manure.

Organic certification may be highly suspect in places, but it's suspect especially outside of the US (in regard especially to imported items) where the standards are different or non-existent. Why anyone would buy 'organic' produce at walmart is a mystery to me anyway.

Matter of fact, you can buy your biblically agriculture based calendar right here:

http://www.michaelrood.com/hebrew_calendar.htm

And apparently the Farmers Almanac still exists. You can get a glimpse of the best recommended days for certain gardening activities from that right here, all based on the moon's cycles, and in use for generations before you were ever born:

http://www.almanac.com/astrology/index.php

I think when people are talking about fertilizer its not just chicken pellets but all sorts. Any thing that is found in the wild thats natural. I think fish, blood, bones, seaweed etc are used and would certainly be organic and would be an issue because of mercury. I eat organic myself though, I just think its the best you can get at the moment without growing it yourself and the levels cannot be that high. I have gotten much better and have eaten this way. Only other choice is grow your own but don't but organic compost because who knows where that is from......

The closest to what all SS is talkin about ,certainly in England,prolly in Americsa, too, if ya don't know the growers is bio-dynamic.Organic is just a generic term, knowing a food is bio-dynamically produced just gives y'all a little more reassurance that there is some more thought put into it's production. After all, the mercury levels have been checked and compared on foods from differing sources and these ones come up best.
Not everbody lives in the country SS and in London your best bet for higher quality organic food would be the BD.
Don't know why this info should be such a prollem, Informed choice and sharin info is what it's all about.

I am finding the 'bitchy' and 'hostile' nature of the posts on this thread difficult and unpleasant. It can be diffulcult enough to raise issues without the added risk of being put down for expressing them. I like Russ' post on conflict and kindness. I think it is possible to be kinder to one another and still say what needs to be said.

On the subject of biodynamic vs organic there does seem to various websites that say more about what the differences may be between the two methods. I found these after doing a search
http://www.biodynamics.com/biodynamics.html
http://www.biodynamic.org.uk/index.htm
http://www.freywine.com/freywine/organic-biodynamic.html

I agree and do apologize, Richard, I'm glad ya raised the subject an I think as a consumer of higher priced foods, I want to know as much as I can about what I'm payin for, it helps me to know the difference in production methods and for me, if i don't know the source, I try an buy bio-dynamic foods just like maybe a certain brand a vitamin comes from a slightly better company so ya get better nutrition.
Buyer beware, an we should all help each other to do this .
Don't mean to sound so disagreeable when I disagree, just tryin to make a point a difference, silly really when turns out we're talkin about more or less the same thang,just labels, really, but thats alls we got to go on if ya don't know the farmer.Some poor folks can only buy their vegetables at Malwart, we gotta try and hold them to a standard,too.And before anyone disagrres with that, try shopping in AuGres , Michigan, the local grocery store before the WM specialized in 23 kinds a cheetos. Vegetables? Canned or dead lookin.Local farmers? Short growin season and a real fondness for every spray going, not willin to risk it up there on new fangled old techniques like organic agriculture(let alone bio-dynamic).
We gotta just try and do the best we can.

hi Everyone,

This is a really interesting thread to me. I have often wondered about the mercury content in food.

Russ, I'd be very interested to hear any results that you find if you decide to test foods and such.

I was also unaware that the sulphur content in foods could affect mercury vapor readings. Dental Holocaust, my friend, I always learn something from your posts.

And Dr. Hesham's comments about candida killing:



This seems to be true in my personal experience. That is, I became quite ill and weakened when I undertook aggressive candida-killing prior to removal of my amalgams. The theory that candida acts as a protective buffer for the body from mercury is also known as The Klinghardt Axiom. Dr. Dietrich Klinghardt has said that research and studies are now underway to scientifically prove this phenomenon that has certainly been observed clinically by holistic, biological dentists.

My own holistic, biological dentist told me that when I took antifungals that I should take sodium alginate along with it. This is to help protect my body from any Retoxing that could occur from newly-released mercury which would be freed when yeasts are killed. Specifically he said, "Yeasts wrap themselves around mercury in an effort to protect the body. When you take an antifungal, you kill the yeast, and the mercury is released."

Along the lines of the discussion pertaining to pesticides and fungicides, I thought I'd provide a link below. I've posted this elsewhere on the forum in months past. I just think it's important for food consumers to be aware of what has been done by the "Brainiac Industries" (sarcasm inserted) in the United States. That is, that toxic substances with heavy metals have been used as fertilizer on our crops.

In 1997, Duff Wilson, an investigative journalist, wrote an award-winning series of articles on the topic of industrial waste being used as fertilizer and sold to unsuspecting farmers and private consumers. There was a loophole in the waste disposal laws which allowed industries to dispose of their toxic and hazardous wastes by turning them into fertilizer. The fertilizer companies who bought this "recycled waste" then turned around and sold it to farming businesses and private consumers without disclosing the source of the fertilizer. These wastes under other circumstance would be federally-mandated to be stored in toxic waste or Superfund sites.

Under prevailing state and federal laws, polluting industries throughout the U.S. saved millions of dollars by sending hazardous waste to fertilizer makers who in turn recycled the toxic chemicals into a product sold to farmers and private consumers without disclosing what was in it.

Some of the industries which were taking advantage of this loophole and sending toxic waste to farms and fertilizer companies were companies that manufactured: Steel Works, Blast Furnaces, and Rolling and Finishing Mills; Electronic Components and Accessories; Industrial Organic Chemicals; Coating, Engraving and Allied Srvices; Secondary Smelting and Refining of Nonferrous Metals; Industrial Inorganic Chemicals; Meat Products; Metal Forgings and Stampings; Agricultural Chemicals (including the scary ones from Monsanto); Nonferrous Foundries (castings); Petroleum Refining, etc.

Crops died, animals died, and people died.

Here is a link to the articles and further reading on the topic:

http://www.bioethicscourse.info/onlinetextsite/fearinfields.html

For a more detailed recounting of this story with excellent sources read Duff Wilson's book on the topic: "Fateful Harvest."

To be honest, I have completely forgotten whether EPA has re-written it's regulations (or which States might have taken action to prevent this practice from occurring once the whistle was blown). But, we know that this was occurring back in 1997. These metals remain in the soil for a long time.

As to organic food -- here is just a snippet from the Epilogue of Wilson's book:

"But the unregulated toxics in fertilizer also affect organic growers, not only from the cadmium in rock phosphates . . . but also from unlimited mercury in some fish fertilizers. Just last month, an organic farming advisor told me about growers being offered fly ash as a substitute for limestone. Some of this ash, from coal combustion waste, was high in arsenic, mercury, chromium, and cadmium that release into the soil when the liming effect wears off."

"Fateful Harvest," by Duff Wilson, page 273. Published 2002.

For those of you interested in monitoring the news and movement in the Organic Food sector, as well as exploring Biodynamics, Genetically-Modified Foods, Nanotechnology, Irradiation, etc. this is a really helpful website:

http://www.organicconsumers.org/

SomedaySoon (Sharon)

Good post Sharon an at the bottom what y'all say about organic growers makin a balls up is precisely ma point about the bio-dynamic folks, they don't really import other peoples fertilizers, they are more inta a closed system a agriculture makin their own preparations and addin minerals through quartz preparations, etc.. It really is a higher quality growin system and iffen ya don't believe me, Richard's number 2 point a reference is worth checkin out for a better explanation than I can give. I find it a comfort to find an area of food production that is what it says it is, as near as they can do it, it's a labor a love, it ain't just jumpin on some bandwagon to make money cuz organic is trendy.
I got a passion for food ,may as well eat the best, uhn huh.

Thanks, Elvis. I just added a link to the bottom of my post up there. I think we were posting at the same time.

On the issue of biodynamics, for anyone that might be interested in learning about it here is a page on biodynamics from the website I cited above:

http://www.organicconsumers.org/biodynamics.cfm

I also forgot to add in my post above that the toxic/metal-laden "fertilizer" spoken about in my above post was also shipped oversees.

SomedaySoon (Sharon)

So we are discussing the origins of a farmer's manure?

Personally, I don't think it matters one hoot if a farmer uses manure from his own cattle or the guy 10 miles away who free range grazes. 20-100 acres of farm is a lot of land to compost, highly unlikely a farmer can do it all himself, raise the cattle and tend the tomatoes, and my guess is that the label 'bio-dynamic' is just another way to raise prices for the same quality produce you can get from any good quality 'organic' farm. And personally, I'd prefer the small farm to the big one any day. It may be a labor of love from the standpoint of novelty but novelty wears off. Lots of love is surely lost after the 5th or 15th acre of tilling, picking bugs, composting and watering on a daily basis. Mostly it's just a lot of labor.

I still insist they are the same thing. The only difference is rhetoric. Instinct telling me that some really big farms somewhere with major acreage to raise a lot of cattle are using this as just another way to drive small farms into the gutter once more.

People garden in NYC and London btw, living in the country is not a requirement. Lots of people in cities even grow tomatoes on their fire escapes. I had a friend who made compost in his city kitchen with 5 gallon buckets. We gardened on a vacant lot in a city in VA for about 4 years as well. Here, I am also part of a community garden. Where there's a will there's a way. Also kind of nice to have neighbors to trade produce with.

Here are two pages to help you calculate how many head of cattle a farm would need need to support recommended manure rates at 20 tons per acre. Don't forget to divide days and nights because manure in the field isn't collected far as I know, only the dung in the barn.

http://www.uvm.edu/vtvegandberry/factsheets/managingNorganic.html

http://www.extension.umn.edu/distribution/cropsystems/DC5882.html

My calculation comes to roughly 200-280 good size half-grown or full grown head of cattle needed to self-sustain the manure needs of just a 50 acre farm, assuming the cattle are out most of the day in summer, and housed a good part of the day in winter.

That, is one really really big barn, and one really really big free range pasture. The garden part of this business is going to be quite a minor part of it. Looks more like a major cattle ranch with a small garden attached.

Here are a couple pages to help you calculate your stocking rates per acre of cattle. You are talking about a very very large ranch to support just 50 acres of farm, about 800-1000 acres at minimum.

http://www.cattletoday.com/forum/about1979.html

http://ohioline.osu.edu/b872/b872_18.html

More is going on here than meets the eye I'd say, and attempting to ruin the reputation of small organic farmers with claims of 'bio-dynamic' superiority is a disservice to us all.

Hi SoSick,

Thanks for those links! I don't know to whom you are referring your past two posts -- was it Elvis? Anyway, I don't know anything about biodynamic farming -- I just supplied that link for people who might be interested in learning about it.

I do, however, frequent that Organic Consumers Org website for their news on what the "Monsanto's" (a/k/a BigAg's) of the world are attempting to do to our food supply. I'm particularly interested in the frightening aspects of GMO's and Frankenfoods.

Anyway, I posted the fertilizer information so that people could use the source as a launching pad to help decipher what heavy metals exist in said fertilizers. Duff Wilson's book goes into more detail with specific heavy metal breakdowns, suppliers, areas where the fertilizer was sold, etc. This industrial waste was sold as fertilizer to commercial farmers, private farmers, and individual consumers for their home gardens and lawns.

I don't know about all this manure debate. But I daresay if manure was used from cattle who had grazed on fields that were genetically modified or fields that had received less then stellar "fertilizer" (this did happen to some organic farmers), then that manure could be filled with heavy metals and poison any otherwise clean crops.

For people who are interested in discovering sources of heavy metal poisoning, this could be an important consideration depending upon their location.

SomedaySoon (Sharon)

It's posted to whomever all generally.

Far as I know, grazing fields are not usually fertilized at all. If anything, they are sown with oats, clover, chick peas, whatever types of high nitrogen replacing grasses, and the cattle drop their dung in an ongoing cycle. Fertilizers are used on farmland, not pasture. Manure from cattle kept in feed lots as opposed to open range grazing is another matter altogether, hard to say what they are fed. Far as genetically modified oats or grasses I really am not sure.

Monsanto is a big problem, I think a lot of farmers and ranchers are aware of it though. There is some concern not just about GMO species polluting the strains of natural species but actually having the ability to kill them off altogether, acting like a herbicide.

Hi SoSick,

That's something I'd like to know actually -- whether grazing fields for cattle are treated with any type of soil treatment.

We are thoroughbred horse owners and the pastures and grazing fields where we keep the horses are limed at least once a year to help keep the soil conditioned. If that "alternative lime" had been used that was mentioned in my post above, it would have been filled with heavy metals -- mercury included. The owner of the facility where we board the horses would never knowingly place a harmful substance on his valuable land that could harm people nor the valuable horses.

But the point I was trying to make was that this soil treatment stuff was being packaged and sold without the source or contents being disclosed. The consumers thought it was safe. If it happened once, I'd bet we could pretty much count on it happening again. :-(

Oh well ........ so many questions!

SomedaySoon (Sharon)

That's true, and I would expect it will happen again, and again, and again. It's like the dog and cat food fiasco, no one wanted it happen but somewhere in the chain of supply someone obvously tried to save money and paid for it dearly. We all do things like this, myself included. Look inside my mouth, no one really wanted to harm me but I have been because it seems convenience is more important to dentists than health.

How do you know the alternative lime wasn't used? I have been around many pastures, horses and cattle, and have never known a rancher/farmer to 'spread' anything on the land excepts oats and grass seed or similar.

There may be a rare cattle guy here or there that puts stuff on his soil on a regular basis, but I think it's normally not done simply because of expense. A boarding farm needs to look good, different situation.

Must be a lot of horses in a small area if the soil is so acidic. Most farmers around here just bulldoze the areas where the horses like to hang out a lot, guess you can't get away with that on a thoroughbred boarding pasture.

It is amazing how much we all suffer so that someone somewhere can make or keep an extra few bucks. I am really wary these days in supermarkets, a lot of our food items/ingredients are coming from China, just like the dog food fillers. there is a bg deal going on with toothpaste from China in central america this past couple weeks... in China they add antifreeze to toothpaste.

Actually, SoSick, the horse farm is rather large with lots of rolling pastures. Out here in horse country, lime is used routinely on the grazing pastures for soil conditioning. I'm not sure about fertilizer.

And I suppose I wouldn't know whether that alternative ash had been used instead of lime. If memory serves, the supplier who was touting that particular product wasn't doing business in my State. But I'd have to investigate that again -- and I'm too lazy to do that right now. lol!

Did you see the news today about the former head of the FDA in China has been sentenced to death? A couple of weeks ago I read a fabulously detailed article about how the glycerine that was tainted with that anti-freeze came about. I regret not saving the link. It was rather scary reading, I must say.

SomedaySoon (Sharon)

Probably very petty pastures too then.

Our pastures around here are more like rocks and stubble with patches and swathes of grass, depending on the time of year. There is a guy that pastures about 30 horses for his ridng stable right up the road, next time I see him I'll ask if he uses lime.

Though surely I would have noticed by now but I'll ask personally anyway what he knows about that. I have another friend who maintains about 20-40 head of black angus catlle the other direction down the road I'll ask him too. Could be weeks before I see either of them though but I'll keep it on my agenda.

There is alot of scientific research showing that the amount of mercury one gets from food is less than one microgram/day unless one eats fish.If hg vaporized from produce at the rate suggested by some on this forum,one tomato must contain millions of micrograms of hg to produce the vapor . You should worry about pesticides in food , not hg.
Soy does'nt cause precocious puberty because it does'nt have estrogenic effects.

My house was owned by a dentist. I wonder what the hg vapor level is in the house.

oh ok.

http://www.drlam.com/opinion/print/soyandestrogen.htm

If the amalgam issue ever makes its way into court, without being dismissed on juristictional or other issues, the pro amalgam side will argue that the hg in amalgam is insignificant compared to mercury exposure from food ,latex paint and other sorces .According to the WHO and other organizations, amalgam is the leading source of hg exposure.The concentration of hg vapor in the mouth of someone with many fillings is 90x the concentration of hg vapor in a room painted with latex paint containing hg.

Who is Dr Lam? In any case ,precocious puberty is not likely linked to soy since dietary exposure is minimal for most people.Menopausal women used to take soy as an estrogen replacement until studies showed it had no effect.

I have no idea who dr Lam is, it was just one page out of many that popped up at yahoo when i searched soy estrogen.

There is lots of info out about it. Soy is an area a lot like amalgam... because it's a huge industry many awill argue for it's benefit and not vice versa.

We avoid it here. I think if you start reading grocery store lables you'll be overwhelmingly surprised at how many products contain soy flour, soy meal, or soy oil. Many many processed foods contain soy, not just some, many.