Antioxidant Addict Blog

Eminence: Fake Organic Copy Of Hungarian Ilike?

Did you know that skincare products aren't regulated, and the USDA organic label only applies to products that are food grade?

Eminence Organic's Tomato Sun Cream SPF 16 looked like a great organic natural daily moisturizer with SPF and no chemical ingredients, so I bought a jar.  Then I read a post on Huddler Green Home that said Eminence was fake organic  because they don't reveal which ingredients are organic or reveal their certification.

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Snow-proof Sunscreen

Serious sunscreen season has arrived.  My fellow RealSelf bloggers have written a great primer about sunscreen active ingredients and SPF inflation (Neutrogena is now advertising SPF 85 in Google ads.)

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For The Love Of Antioxidants

Hi, my name is Eric, and I'm an antioxidant addict.

I've always loved blueberries. When I heard that wild blueberries packed the most antioxidant punch, I had a great excuse to eat lots of blueberries for breakfast, lunch, and sometimes even dinner.

Antioxidants counter the effects of free-radical oxidants in our body. Since free radicals damage DNA and can speed up aging and cause cancer, any food that disarms anti-oxidants is worth considering.

You may have also heard about a compound in red wine - resveratrol - that increased the physical endurance and intelligence of lab rats in some studies. No, the rats weren't drinking vino - they were given very high does of purified resveratrol. It would be impossible for humans (or rats) to get the same dose of resveratrol from drinking red wine, as too much wine would be required to get an equivalent dose.

While I do enjoy moderate amounts of red wine, I try to get most of my antioxidants through whole fruits. Most of the antioxidants in fruits are in the skins, since the antioxidants help the plants protect their fruit from bacteria and fungi.  That's why red wine has resveratrol and white wine (which is made without the grape skins) doesn't.

I buy individually quick frozen wild blueberries (which you can get at Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, and most other supermarkets) and eat them on top of organic whole wheat toast with organic peanut butter. Initially, I just ate the berries frozen, but that's wasn't much fun. So I now microwave the whole thing - blueberries, peanut butter, and toast - for 90 seconds. It tastes great, and even better, apparently peanut butter also contain resveratrol! (About half the resveratrol as an equivalent weight of red wine.) I love blueberries so much that I've eaten the same thing for breakfast for the last five years. I'm still just as excited about the taste, so sometimes I'll also eat it for lunch or a snack.

Recently, I learned about açaí, a fruit from the Amazon that has even more antioxidants than blueberries. (Viacom CEO Sumner Redstone, who is 84, swears by açaí and calls it his anti-aging secret.)

What makes açaí so powerful? The seed takes up so much room in the fruit that only the outer skin is processed into food. Since the skin has most of the antioxidants in other berries, it makes sense that there would be more antioxidants in the açaí skins than in whole wild blueberries. The taste of açaí is great - it's like wild blueberry with a hint of chocolate - yet it's more expensive than wild blueberries and it's only available in the USA as a juice, sorbet, or smoothie mix. None of those would go very well on top of my toast...

Well, that's probably all you want to know about my berry obsession.  Find out next time why I love wild salmon and matcha green tea...

Santé!

Eric

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Queer Eye For The Botox Guy

Jai Rodriguez of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and RENT fame gets Botox and lip augmentation from Dr. Will Kirby of Dr. 90210 on E! news.

Jai wanted Mario Lopez's "naughty pout" and was very happy with the results: "Angelia Jolie, eat your heart out."  To get Jai ready for a photo shoot to launch his music career, Dr. Kirby also suggested Botox and a chemical peel.

The video shows the whole visit, including the Botox and lip augmentation injections and a very light chemical peel.  No word on whether he chose Juvederm or Restylane...

I wish we could see more before-and-after videos like this one, since it's so much harder to retouch video - you see the real truth, not the miracles of Photoshop. 

I wish every cosmetic medical professional felt as Dr. Kirby does: "when you make a commitment to becoming a doctor, you commit your life to helping people.  Sometimes you cure cancer... other times you make a man's lips a little more naughty." 

Some shady cosmetic providers are just in it for the money, and don't care if they sell a patient a treatment that won't help them since they figure that the patient is just doing it out of vanity.  Regardless of the motivation, people seeking cosmetic treatment deserve the same level of medical care and honest and realistic treatment recommendations as any other patient.

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Can You Believe What A Cosmetic Treatment Company Will Do To Fake Their Reputation?

If a cosmetic treatment works, why does a treatment provider write fake testimonials? 
 
RealSelf.com exists so consumers can have an honest conversation about elective cosmetic treatments, procedures, and products.  It pains me to see a treatment provider write fake patient testimonials.

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