There are ideas about what constitutes "good nutritional habits" in mainstream America, but a lot of them are simply premised on distortions or outright falsehoods. Here are some of the most common, based on current data and research:

Stay away from eggs - they aren't good for you: In a word, false.

Nutrition professionals have managed to demonize a number of healthy foods, and the egg is one such food item that has gotten a bad rap. Eggs do contain a large amount of cholesterol and for that reason it's been easy to paint them as detrimental contributors to heart disease.

However, the most recent research has shown that cholesterol in the diet doesn't really raise cholesterol in the blood. Also, eggs raise "good" cholesterol levels and are not associated with an increased risk of heart disease.

Researchers in Toulouse are testing the use of a new drug on soldiers that could help tackle post-traumatic stress disorder.

Pascal Roullet, a researcher at the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), discovered that propanolol could be used to suppress certain bad memories.

Tests began in January. Mr Roullet said: "The study has only just begun and we will need about a year and a half to be certain it is effective."

Post-traumatic stress is an anxiety disorder frequently found in soldiers, which develops after they have been exposed to a traumatic event in combat.

It doesn't surprise. Times policy is irresponsible. It's unprincipled. It's reprehensible. It's longstanding. It supports wealth, power and privilege.

It endorses what demands condemnation. It ignores GMO dangers. Doing so betrays its readers. More on that below.

GMO foods and ingredients are toxic. They're unsafe to eat. They harm human health. Independent scientific research proves it. Coverup and denial suppress what's vital to know.

Agribusiness giants want all animal and vegetable life forms patented. They want worldwide food control. They want it genetically engineered. They prioritize profits over human health.

GMOs saturate today's foods. The Center for Food Safety (CFS) "challeng(es) harmful food production technologies and promot(es) sustainable alternatives."

It calls genetically engineered plants and animals "one of the greatest and most intractable environmental challenges of the 21 century."

In America, up to 85% of corn, 94% of soybeans, 93% of canola, and 88% of cotton are genetically engineered. Over 80% of processed foods contain GMO ingredients.

They include dairy and animal products, vegetable oils, soft drinks, ice cream, margarine, peanut butter, tomato sauce, salad dressings, soups, crackers, and much more.

In my recent post on red meat, I showed you why red meat of any kind is a healthy choice, and doesn't deserve the bad reputation that it's given by the media and mainstream medical establishment. But although conventional beef won't give you cancer and is an important source of highly bioavailable nutrients, we can't ignore the fact that grass-fed meat is still superior to grain-fed.

The classic idiom "you are what you eat" applies just as well to cows as it does to humans, and there are some pretty significant differences in the quality of red meat based on how the animal was fed. I've talked about this in the past here, here, and here, but this post will give you a more detailed summary on why grass-fed meat is a better choice than grain-fed.

Fatty Acid Composition

I mentioned in my previous post that the ratio of saturated to monounsaturated to polyunsaturated fat in beef stays about the same regardless of what the animal is fed. (1)Those ratios might shift slightly depending on the animal's diet, but the shifts are still relatively small. On average, grass-fed beef tends to have slightly lower levels of MUFA and slightly higher levels of PUFA than grain-fed, but these differences are at most five percentage points, depending on the breed of cattle and the study in question. So regardless of whether your beef is grain-fed or grass-fed, you'll be getting about 40-50% saturated fat, about 40-50% monounsaturated fat, and somewhere near 10% polyunsaturated fat.

However, the diet of the cow does significantly influence the types of each fat present. Within the broad categories of SFA, MUFA, and PUFA, there are several individual fatty acids with different chemical compositions, and each has unique effects on the body.

Rich Products Corp. has announced a voluntary recall of its Farm Rich Mini Quesadillas and other Farm Rich products because of a possible E. coli contamination.

The recall, announced Thursday, also includes the Buffalo, N.Y.-based company's Farm Rich Mini Pizza Slices, Farm Rich Philly Cheese Steaks, Farm Rich Mozzarella Bites and Market Day Mozzarella Bites. They were produced Nov. 12 through Nov. 19.

Two studies published in the past six months reveal a disturbing finding: glyphosate-based herbicides such as Roundup® appear to suppress the growth of beneficial gut bacteria, leading to the overgrowth of extremely pathogenic bacteria.

Late last year, in an article titled Roundup Herbicide Linked to Overgrowth of Deadly Bacteria, we reported on new research indicating that glyphosate-based herbicides such as Roundup® may be contributing to the overgrowth of harmful bacteria, both in GM-produced food and our own bodies. By suppressing the growth of beneficial bacteria and encouraging the growth of pathogenic ones, including deadly botulism-associated Clostridum botulinum, GM agriculture may be contributing to the alarming increase, wordwide, in infectious diseases that are resistant to conventional antibiotics, such as Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and Carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE), which the CDC's director recently termed a 'nightmare bacteria.'

The horse meat fiasco in Europe has prodded scientists to look a bit deeper into what else we might be consuming. A team of South African scientists have just found traces of human tissue in meat meant for public consumption from 9 provinces.

The issue was revealed to parliament, almost as a side note, during meat inspection briefings on Tuesday.

A University of Stellenbosch scientist and his team conducted a microbial analysis that revealed traces of human elements, but said that slaughterhouse workers sometimes cut themselves . . . or other things . . . which could lead to the findings.

If I walked into a factory and the sample I randomly selected to test was a meat sample of which the person de-boning the meat had just picked his nose and then touched the meat, I would get a totally different microbial reading," he said.

Delicious. Beyond the findings themselves, it brings up the global hot-button topic of the moment: food labeling. How much should we know about what we are consuming?

I'm absolutely shocked at how many people don't investigate what's really in the products they swallow. When something is sold as an herb, vitamin, superfood or supplement, they think it's automatically safe. And while the natural products industry has a truly remarkable safety record - especially in contrast to the massive number of deaths caused by pharmaceuticals - it still suffers from a lot of hidden toxins that are routinely used throughout the industry.

I know this because I've been an investigative journalist and activist in the natural health industry for over a decade. Natural News is arguably the most-read natural health news website in the world, reaching millions of readers a month. I've walked the floors of countless trade shows, conducted hundreds of interviews and spent tens of thousands of dollars on laboratory tests to determine what's in these products. On top of that, I'm deep into organic product formulations and certified organic food production, serving as the supervisor of a USDA-certified organic food production and packing facility.

When I look around the natural products industry, I see examples of super honest, high-integrity companies like Nature's Path and Dr. Bronner's. I also see an alarming number of cheats, crooks and charlatans who are only involved in the industry to profit from the explosion of interest in health supplements. In truth, some nutritional products are downright dangerous to your health. My role as a journalist and activist is to help you tell the difference between products that are GOOD for you vs. products that might actually be toxic. Because ultimately, I want you to be healthy, vibrant, intelligent and active. I want you to enjoy life and improve the quality of your life.

Genetically modified organisms, or GMOs, are created when a gene from one species is transferred to another, creating something that would not be found in nature.

A large percentage of domestic crops (up to 85% of soybean yields) have DNA that was tweaked in a lab, yet it is nearly impossible to know which food items contain these genetically engineered ingredients. Thankfully new mobile phone apps are making it a bit easier for the consumer to know what they are eating, but this is not enough.

The Galveston National Laboratory lost one of five vials containing a deadly Venezuelan virus, according to the University of Texas Medical Branch, which owns the $174 million facility designed with the strictest security measures to hold the deadliest viruses in the country.

Like Ebola, the missing Guanarito virus causes hemorrhagic fever, an illness named for "bleeding under the skin, in internal organs or from body orifices like the mouth, eyes, or ears," according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"This is clearly an incident that is very discomforting and embarrassing to the University of Texas Medical Center and their national biosecurity lab that they have there," said Dr. William Schaffner, chairman of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tenn. "You can be sure there are a lot of sweating people down the chain at that institution."