Watermelon
The high liquid content of watermelon, along with the natural sugars and fiber, make it the perfect snack. However, it’s much more than just a snack. Tomatoes are highly touted for their high content of the immune strengthening antioxidant lycopene. The fact is that watermelon actually contains more lycopene (40% actually) than tomatoes. If you bring one home, keep it out even once it’s cut instead of refrigerating it. This may sound strange, but you get the most benefit this way. Room temperature watermelon can continue producing antioxidants for up to two weeks.

Onions
Primarily used for seasoning, onions are high in vitamin C, fiber, folate, and vitamin B-6. They also contain large amounts of quercetin, which can help relieve allergies and has also been known to have anti-cancer effects. Studies have shown that people who eat the most onions can reduce their risk for oral cancer by 84%, colon cancer by 56%, breast cancer by 25% and prostate cancer by 71%. Red onions have the most quercetin, but pink shallots have a wider mix of antioxidants.

Lettuce
Looking at the light green color of most lettuce would generally lead one to believe that it doesn’t have the nutrients of other vegetables, but this is not the case. Iceberg lettuce contains lutein and zeaxanthin, which are carotenoids that reduce the risk of cataracts and age related macular degeneration. Add a salad at the beginning of a meal to get some of these benefits, and you’ll also likely eat fewer overall calories due to feeling more full and satisfied.

Vitamin B.  You’ve known of it, and likely taken it for years.  Whether through the foods you eat, or as a separate supplement, it’s a part of your life.  It supports metabolism, maintains skin and muscle tone, enhances your immune and nervous systems, and promotes cell growth.  It all sounds wonderful, doesn’t it?  So what could be so bad about it that the FDA is ruling that some varieties be pulled from the shelves and not sold as dietary supplements?  It’s not expensive enough.

Pyridoxamine is a compound that makes up vitamin B6.  It has been readily available, and easily sold for years upon years as a dietary supplement. Up until now, there has been no news about it.  Even now, the news that does exist is somewhat under the radar, which is why we’re bringing it to you now. In 2005, a pharmaceutical company called Biostratum began developing a new drug to treat diabetic kidney disease. The only hitch in the plan came when investors in the company found that the only active ingredient in this new drug (Pyidorin) was pyridoxamine.  Pyridorin had already gone through two phases of clinical trials, so by now they’ve reahed the “nothing is off limits, anything goes” phase in order to get their drug through.

After this revelation they lost funding for their third phase of clinical trials, even though the first two had been successful. Success that was due mainly to the inclusion of an existing dietary supplement. What to do now? Change the formulation? Rethink the original strategy? Ban the previously sold, naturally occurring supplement altogether? If you guessed the third option then you could probably secure a position in Biostratums board of directors because that’s exactly what they’re doing. Biostratum is fighting to ban all previously existing forms of pyridoxamine and labeling them as “adulterated”.

Citing no explanation for this adulteration, the request has taken plenty of time to fester and become exacerbated.  However, earlier this year the FDA ruled that pyridoxamine can no longer be sold and their direct comment on the issue was “To allow such an article to be marketed as a dietary supplement would not be fair to the pharmaceutical company that brought, or intends to bring, the drug to market.”

This is just another example of big government agencies being more concerned with filling their pockets than with the job that has been set before them.  The last time I checked, the FDA was still under the US Department of Health and Human Services.  It doesn’t seem that they’re serving all that appropriately.  Consider also that the FDA has recently called for Cheerios cereal to remove their advertisement that it can lower cholesterol unless it applies for a drug patent.

If you feel that behavior of this caliber is detrimental to our establishment and human rights, then your only real option is to file a citizen petition.  There are a few important things to remember when doing so.  They include:

1. 
   A description of the action you want addressed, such as a ruling or an order you want to have put in place, rewritten to include changes or revoked.
2. 
   The legal grounds on which you are making a petition and the facts to back up your claims. You do need to include all the supporting information that you can come up with.
3. 
   If your petition is one for which you are requesting approval of drugs, food additives, medical devices or for a food to be categorized as safe for consumption, you will have to provide information regarding the environmental impact of such a request.
4. 
   All petition letters must include the name, address and telephone number of the person initiating the petition.

The FDA does not accept emailed or online petitions, so once you have everything in order you can mail it to them at the following address:

Dockets Management Branch, HFA-305
Food and Drug Administration
5630 Fishers Lane, Rm 1061
Rockville, MD 20852