Last week while I was shopping at a book store, the cover of the latest August 31, 2009 edition of Time Magazine caught my eye. I couldn't help but notice it because there on the front cover is a large photo of a package of hamburger meat, one of the most dangerous products in our food system. In the middle of the package of hamburger meat is a warning label which reads, "WARNING: This hamburger may be hazardous to your health. Why the American food system is bad for our bodies, our economy and our environment - and what some visionaries are trying to do about it." The cover further implies through its title "The Real Cost of Cheap Food," that behind America's food system and corporate farming practices, there have been great costs at all levels, not only to the health of Americans but also to the health of our planet.

Seeing the subject of factory farming positioned on the cover of Time is a positive sign that people are now finally listening to these visionaries who have been out there on the front lines for years educating and warning the public of the consequences of industrialized farming practices that are not sustainable or honorable and that go against laws of nature. This article is further support for a small few who have been fighting a tough battle against very powerful industries, including our own government, in order to protect the health of people, our environment as well as the quality of life for livestock animals and to preserve the integrity of real food.

You might have thought that the quality of food would have been a priority and would have at least mattered to our policy makers in government,

Happy August!

I hope you are surviving the hot summer weather. To help you keep cool, please check out my website recipe section that just launched in May 2009.

I have posted a few new healthy recipes such as Cucumber Ginger Lemonade, Glowing Goddess Green Juice and Healthy Spring Rolls with Almond Sauce. All are made with raw foods which are very cooling and detoxifying. Click here to go to the recipe login page.

This year has really gone by so fast and it is hard to believe that there are only four more months left in 2009. Time flies when you are having fun!

I have enjoyed meeting so many of you at the various Artemis in the City events and health fairs. It has been a magical summer teaching people about food and helping them heal. When you have time, click here to read some of my new client testimonials.

I have added a new toll-free number, 866-330-5421. No matter where a person lives within the United States, they can give me a call for free. Please let your

Danielle Heard, MS, HHC, founder of Artemis in the City was recently interviewed by fellow Columbia University Alumni, friend and behavioral scientist Dr. Amy Hale.

Dr. Hale is interested in individual and environmental health and wellness. She writes a blog tiled "Making The Easy Choice...Sustainably." In her blog, Dr. Hale focuses on issues such as healthy living, individual wellness, the environment and sustainability.

It was an honor to be interviewed by Dr. Hale. Please click here to read the interview, "You Are What You Eat: 'Live' Foods Give Life, Reverse Disease."

You can also follow Dr. Hale on Twitter, click here!

Over the past 30 years, we have made changes to our nations' food supply that are greater than any other period in human history. We have moved our country away from traditional food and into a world of factory farmed and factory produced food that is not only harmful to our environment but is killing Americans.

Today, there is very little food in our grocery stores that is real food and that is healthy to eat. People now think that food comes in boxes with hundreds of different ingredients. When eaten, these foods slowly poison people until they develop heart disease, cancer, diabetes, kidney disease, auto-immune system diseases, and many other serious diseases including obesity. This poor quality food is creating enormous health care costs.

Across America is a sea of fast food and restaurant chains that are serving the same meals in a thousand locations. How can they do this? They accomplish this by creating cheap, prepackaged food that contains a toxic mixture of sugar, chemicals and preservatives. The food is nutrient-poor and the meat products are made from animals that have been raised inhumanely and not sustainably. The food is then cooked in harmful disease causing fats such as hydrogenated oil which is high heated and used over and over again.

Our government has allowed for this to happen to our society through legislation.

This might look like a typical healthy breakfast to you (cereal, blueberry muffin, low-fat milk, orange juice, jelly and margarine), but to those of us who have studied nutrition from an alternative healing perspective, this is a nutrient-poor, highly refined and denatured breakfast that consists mainly of simple carbohydrates, refined sugar and bad fats. This breakfast is not healing or health supportive and is the type of toxic meal that can lead to many chronic diseases such as diabetes, arthritis, chronic fatigue syndrome, obesity and cancer.

This meal was served to my mother this morning while she was being treated as a hospital patient at Good Shepherd Medical Center. My mother, who is a diabetic and kidney dialysis patient, is trying to recover from a gall bladder attack. After serving my mother this high sugar breakfast, the hospital server then asked her if she would like pork or chicken salad for lunch. The hospital then planned to serve my mother a meal containing saturated fat. Saturated fat is a known cause of gall stones. A meal consisting of animal fat and other unhealthy fats could potentially cause another gall bladder attack. What is even more disturbing, is that the hospital staff could not identify the ingredients of the food. 

This food is unhealthy even for a well person to eat. It is also dangerous for people to eat food without knowing what ingredients have been added. This is especially so for people who are sick.

It is not surprising to see this type of food served in hospitals since it is supported by the United States Department of Agriculture and the American Dietetic Association.

A couple of months ago, while I was in the checkout line at the grocery store, I noticed the products in the basket of the woman next to me. I am always curious to investigate and discover what a person chooses to feed their body. What initially drew my attention to her cart was the overflowing boxes of green tea in her basket. Seems like a good healthy choice - right? But why was she buying so many boxes of the same green tea product?

I asked her if I could see one of the boxes of green tea in her basket. Listed in the ingredients was the artificial sweetener aspartame which is also known as NutraSweet and Equal. Now most people who choose to drink green tea, do so for its health supportive properties. I was completely shocked to learn that a green tea product contained aspartame, which is a known excitotoxin and is considered by many reputable experts to be a chemical poison. I realized that this woman must not know the truth about this artificial sweetener, and that there is still an important need to educate the public about aspartame.

Why was this woman buying so many boxes of green tea with aspartame? Excitotoxins like aspartame and MSG are used in food products to enhance flavor. They affect the brain and actually make people crave and consume more of them. I left the store that day knowing that I must speak out again against this deadly chemical poison.

On June 11, 2009, Danielle Heard, MS, HHC, of Artemis in the City was featured in the health section of the Longview News-Journal. The article titled "Food as Medicine," was written by the Longview News-Journal's health and business editor, Mike Elswick.

It was an honor to be interviewed by Mike and really appreciate and thank him for his time spent interviewing, researching, writing and creating such a great article. In addition to the article, the Longview News-Journal published two healthy recipes from the Artemis in the City recipe section of the website.

If you would like the opportunity to read the article, please click on the article link "Food as Medicine" to open a pdf version. The file is 5,135 KB and will take a minute to download. If you would like to print the article you will need to adjust the print size to fit your paper. Enjoy!

Additionally, if you are interested in attending the upcoming event "Sweet Misery - A Poisoned World" documentary film showing on aspartame, which will be held on Tuesday, June 23, 2009 at 6:30 PM in Longview, TX, please RSVP! For a full description, please click on the event link above. Hope to see you there!

For those of you who are not in the East Texas area and were unable to watch my recent television interview, I have managed to convert the interview into a video format that is viewable on the Internet.

I will never forget the night that my dear friend Robbins Davis and I were talking and he informed me that he had started to wear a kilt. My response was with shock and concern that he would wear 'a skirt' in East Texas. He assured me that all was cool and sent me photos and funny videos of the Utili Kilts that he was wearing. From then on I loved and admired seeing my friend in his stylish kilts.

Robbins was a wonderful and very special person. He was unique, creative, talented, funny, kind, sensitive, caring and accepting. He was also extremely intelligent and you would never know that he had suffered a brain injury in an accident while in high school. Robbins would have to remind me and would ask that I call him or email him reminders because he was not good with remembering. In fact, it was his injury that led him to wearing kilts to keep his body cool and to applying dark black eye-makeup around his eyes to prevent him from having migraines. He cared less about what people thought and overtime developed himself into a well loved home-town hero. Everyone that met Robbins loved him. He was often referred to as the pirate because his stylish garb reminded people of Johnny Depp's character Jack Sparrow in the movie "Pirates of the Caribbean."

Last week in my Spring Update blog, I mentioned that I (Artemis in the City) would be featured in the Longview News-Journal and would also be a guest on Jan Statman's talk show Scene. It is such an honor to be featured in my hometown media and want to thank Mike Elswick and Jan Statman for inviting me to talk about holistic health, nutrition and Artemis in the City.

There was a delay in publishing the article in the Longview News-Journal. If you looked for it on June 4th, you have not missed it. The interview is scheduled to run this Thursday, June 11, 2009 in the health section of the newspaper. If you are in the Longview, Texas area please look for it this week.

Additionally, I just returned from taping Jan's talk show Scene this afternoon. The air times are Wednesday, June 10 and 17 and Thursday June 11 and 18 at 7:30 PM on Channel 26 in Longview, Texas. The interview will also be shown at random times throughout each day through June 25, 2009. Please watch for it!

If you are interested in attending my upcoming event "Sweet Misery - A Poisoned World" documentary film showing on aspartame which will be held on Tuesday, June 23, 2009 at 6:30 PM, please RSVP! Even if you already have knowledge about aspartame, please come for a fun night! I would love to see you there!

Finally, if you have not had a chance to read my recent blog on cancer survivors and Gilda's Club, please check it out. This week Gilda's Club will celebrate its 14th birthday. Happy Birthday Gilda's Club!