It was a cold and blustery day today but I thought I would wonder up to Giapo and see if the artisan GP was in.

He wasn’t but the inviting colors beckoned me to taste a couple of new flavors and so before you know it I’ve got a large tub full of my favorites (Dulce Deleche and Just for Girls, not the new flavors I was trying but once you get started you can’t stop) and I was sitting outside under one of the nice warm heaters snacking away on the most delicious of Gelato’s that I’ve ever had.

So don’t let the wet and cold stop you from enjoying Giapo and the wonder flavors of Gelato and Sorbet that are made in this wonderful store.

At school we learn that pH is a measure of whether something is acid, in which case it has a pH less than 7, or a base or alkali, in which case it has a pH greater than 7. A completely neutral pH is 7.

PH Meter

You might know that your body maintains its pH at 7.4, and if it drops below 7.35 you enter a state of metabolic acidosis.

The theory of acid-base balancing diets is somewhat controversial, and mainstream science has dismissed most of it. Your diet should be balanced towards the alkali so that your body’s natural alkali state is maintained (pH7.4).

If you are in a status of metabolic acidosis, Your body will pull alkali minerals from bone and muscle tissue in an effort to keep pH where it needs to be 7.4. Everything that goes in to your body has a pH and your food is no different. However, it is not the pH of the food that is important, it is the pH of what the food becomes.

Maximising the alkali foods means that your body does not have to work as hard to neutralise the acidic products of digestion. Foods that have the most acidic outcomes when digested are Beef, Pork Veal, Shellfish, Sardines, Tuna, eggs, blueberry, anything pickled, artificial sweeteners, and soda’s, while topping the alkali table are broccoli, celery, garlic and spinach.. Lemon and vinegar are acid but they get turned into alkali during the digestion so they do not stress our body too much.

As you would expect, Giapo make their sorbet to be as balanced towards alkali as they can be.. We bought a pH meter for the cause so we can work around the recipe with some sort of guidance..

Our goal is that your body will not need to have the extra stress to get your pH right when you have a Giapo. Mainstream science dismissed the concept of acid-alkali balancing in the diet a long time ago, and for a similarly long time ignored it. However we can now say that mainstream science made a mistake. Diet and in particular a diet rich in the foods that are acidic has been firmly linked to osteoporosis, age related muscle wasting and has seen that minimizing acid foods and maximising alkali foods is a useful way of preventing the formation of kidney stones. When your body is fighting to stay alkali, your blood shifts ever so slightly to acid first, of course this is corrected, however, this acid environment is enough to give red blood cells a positive charge. Normally they are negatively charged, so when some become positive they stick together more and do not work as well. Sound far fetched, well if your red blood cells cannot carry enough oxygen or iron the first symptom of both is tiredness.

Now that is something to ponder over a delicious Giapo isnt it. While you ponder how to switch to a diet that is more in tune with your body’s pH, you can also consider why tiredness is the Western’s worlds most prevalent malady. Sure, people tend to work long hours, and have stressful lives, but could this tiredness have a dietary link too. Of course this is mainstream science, but it could have some mileage, after all, we have seen how mainstream science is having to rediscover the acid-alkali balancing diet after years of ignoring it.

This is why Giapo likes to produce a sorbet that is more than just yummy, made from the best organic fruits, and fairly traded ingredients with passion and extraordinary attention to detail… we really want it to be good for you on the inside too. We cannot guarantee that all our sorbets have always the same pH though as the ph of fresh ingredients happen to vary slightly one day to another… . but with the use of our Waiwera Water pH 8.6 and organic daily squeezed lemon juice, even our blueberry sorbet (one of the most acidic fruit on earth) will never be too far off to our balanced pH goal.

Written by Gianpaolo Grazioli and Leslie Willis

References

Barzel, U. “Acid loading and osteoporosis.” Journal of the American Geriatric Society.30(1982):613.

Brown, S. and R. Jaffe. “Acid-alkaline balance and its effect on bone health.” International Journal of Integrative Medicine 2(6): Nov/Dec 2000.

Buclin, T., M. Cosina, M. Appenzeller, A.F. Jacquet, L.A. Decosterd, J. Biollaz, and P. Burckhardt. “Diet acids and alkalis influence calcium retention in bone.” Osteoporosis International 12(6):493-499, 2001.

Bushinsky, D.A. and K.K. Frick. “The effects of acid on bone.” Current Opinion in Nephrology and Hypertension 9(4):369-379, 2000.

Dwyer, Johanna, E. Foulkes, M. Evans, and L. Ausman. Acid/Alkaline Ash Diets: Time for Assessment and Change. Journal fo the American Dietetic Association85(7): 841-845.

Frassetto, L.A., R.C. Morris, Jr., and A. Sebastian. “Effect of age on blood acid-base composition in adult humans: Role of age-related renal functional decline.” American Journal of Physiology 271(6 Pt. 2):F1114-F1122,1996.

Kurtz, I., T. Maher, H.N. Hulter, M. Schambelan, A. Sebastian. “Effect of diet on plasma acid-base composition in normal humans,” Kidney Int, 1983. http://www.nature.com/ki/journal/v24/n5/abs/ki1983210a.html

Maurer, M., W. Riesen, J. Muser, H.N. Hulter, and R. Krapf. “Neutralization of Western diet inhibits bone resorption independently of K intake and reduces cortisol secretion in humans.” American Journal of Physiology 284(1):F32-F40, 2003.

McGartland, C.P., P.J. Robson, L.J. Murray, G.W. Cran, M.J. Savage, D.C. Watkins, M.M. Rooney, and C.A. Boreham. “Fruit and vegetable consumption and bone mineral density: The Northern Ireland Young Hearts Project.” American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 80(4):1019-1023, 2004.

New, S.A. “Intake of fruit and vegetables: Implications for bone health.” Proceedings of the Nutrition Society 62(4):889-899, 2003.

Remer, T. “Influence of diet on acid-base balance.” Seminars in Dialysis 13(4):221-226, 2000.

Sebastian, A., L.A. Frassetto, R.L. Merriam, D.E. Sellmeyer, R.C. Morris, Jr. “An evolutionary perspective on the acid-base effects of diet.” In Acid-Base Disorders and Their Treatment, Gennari, J, et al., eds. Marcel Dekker, Inc. 2002, 2005.

Tucker K.L., Marian T. Hannan2 and Douglas P. Kiel. “The Acid-Base Hypothesis: Diet and Bone in the Framingham Osteoporosis Study.” European Journal of Nutrition. 40(5): 1436-6207.

Wiederkehr, M. and R. Krapf. “Metabolic and endocrine effects of metabolic acidosis in humans.” Swiss Medical Weekly 131 (9-10):127-132, 2001.

Roll up and sign up for the Giapolympics! We want to put you to the test in a series of gelato related events that have you competing for the title of Giaponian World Champion plus free gelato for the next 3 months.

Do we have your attention? Are you ready to hear more?

There are 5 rounds that you can enter into, and each round gives you a shot at winning 1 month of free gelato plus a shot at winning the grand prize of 3 months free gelato.

Free t-shirt is provided to all participants, thanks to EatSafe (proudly supported by Giapo).

The Giapolympics will be held over two days (September the 25th , October the 2nd ), only 25 places available. First come first served!

How to Register

To register now its very simple. Go to Facebook and “tag” Giapo in a Facebook status update that shows us you want to play i.e.: I would love to be part of the @giapo lympics and I wish they pick me. The first 25 status updates will be selected.

Registration closes 18th September.

The Games

Day 1: September 25th at 14.00

Round 1: The Fastest Milkshake drinker around.

How fast can you drink a Giapo’s milkshakes. The fastest milkshake-drinker will take first place (and a probably a brain freeze).

Round 2: Super Giapo Against Time

Can you eat Giapo’s colossal Super Giapo cone faster than anyone else? In round 4 of the Giapolympics you have an opportunity that you have a stomach of steel and can down the massive gelato  dipped in chocolate and nuts in a flash.

Round 3 : Best Picture, people’s choice.

We will be shooting “funny” pictures of each of you.. the one that gets more like on Facebook until 1st October 11.59pm will be the winner.

Day 2: October 2nd

Round 4: Gelato Taste Test

We’ll give you 5 minutes to take note of all the flavours on offer at Giapo on the day, and then you’ll be challenged to a blind taste test that requires you to guess the name of the flavour you’ve been given. We won’t be easy!

Round 5: All You Can Eat in 5 Minutes

You have 5 minutes to eat as much gelato as possible, this one is a little self explanatory but let’s just hope your brain doesn’t come away frozen.

The 1st, 2nd and 3rd place of each round will be awarded a certain number of points which all go towards determining the overall winner of the Giapolympics.

There will be an extensive jury… but in case of dispute .. Gianpaolo will have the last word!

Good luck!

Dear Friends.. first I d like to say that me gianpaolo and Giapo have no financial relationship to any bottled water suppliers. Waiwera Water is my supplier of Water, we pay them full price for their great water they bring us but we do not get paid for writing what we do nor we have been asked to write anything.

With madaboutgiapo’s blog we write to inform, to share ideas, to discuss and to learn.
I hope you appreciate the attitude.. I have also amended the precedent blog post about the antibiotic paragraph that Robert has referred to. The way its is written now should make it clear.
We know that Chlorination is very successful in killing waterborne diseases such as cholera, typhoid, dysentery and hepatitis. Today we know that tap water supplies ( and not just them) use chlorine and chloramine  to prevent and kill bacteria that might otherwise be present in water supplies.. Over the last 30 years, however, a growing body of research has shown chlorine and its assorted byproducts are very harmful to our health. The question that i have been asked today after my blog post was: are chlorine and chloramine dangerous in such minute quantities like the one found in our tap water? Yes according to Joseph G. Hattersley , a scientist who I discovered a couple of years back in my search and passion in food science. My previous post is clearly inspired by this scientific article that I have copied and pasted here below for you. If You wish to contact Joseph G. Hattersley, this is his email address JosephHattersley@ gateway.net .

By Joseph G. Hattersley on chlorinated water.
Article already published in the Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine 2000;15;2:89-95.

Federal regulations require chlorine treatment of the water supplied to urban/suburban America from surface sources such as lakes, reservoirs and rivers. That constitutes about 75 percent of water that Americans consume. (Water from underground sources generally is not chlorinated unless it is supplemented by surface water. My hometown, Lacey, Washington, and some surrounding communities that are supplied water by Lacey, are fortunate to be among that group; I’d like to see that continue.)

Chlorination is inferior water treatment on at least two counts.

Although it has greatly lowered infectious waterborne diseases in the U.S. and Canada, chlorination fails against a variety of water problems including parasites and can seriously harm people who use the water.

Its cost is unnecessarily high. Andover, Massachusetts new ozone treatment costs $83 per million gallons of purified water, only two-thirds as much as the old treatment process. The town saves $64,000 annually in chemicals costs alone, and uses less electricity.

Let’s explore this. When chlorinated water is run through a hose or carried in a pail followed by milk as in a dairy, what happens? “Very tenacious, yellowish deposits chemically similar to arterial plaque” form; with unchlorinated water this doesn’t happen.

CBS’ “Sixty Minutes” show July 11, 1992, displayed two laboratory rats, both of them eating standard rat chow and drinking chlorinated water. One rat had clear arteries. The other was also drinking pasteurized, homogenized milk.

When the animals were sacrificed and cut open, the arteries of its milk-drinking companions were clogged.

A scientist in a white coat winked at the camera and said, “He [the rat he was holding] is the only one doing research on that.” The researcher didn’t say why, but the powerful dairy and chemical lobbies come to mind.

Dairy buckets and hoses, and rats’ arteries resist the arterial-wall damage known as atherosclerosis. But what can chlorinated water and milk, particularly homogenized milk, do to the far more susceptible arteries of humans? The arteries of young chickens are about as susceptible to such damage as people’s arteries. So as a first approximation, J.M. Price, MD gave cockerels (roosters less than a year old) only chlorinated water.

They rapidly developed arterial plaques; and the stronger the concentration of chlorine, the faster and worse the damage. Other cockerels given unchlorinated water developed no such damage.2

The residents of the small town of Roseto, Pennsylvania, had no heart attacks despite a diet rich in saturated animal fats and milk — until they moved away from Roseto’s mountain spring water and drank chlorinated water. After that, consuming the same diet, they had heart attacks.2 The Roseto example is dramatic enough, but the needed detailed comparisons and follow-up are not likely to be done.

What’s Going on Here?

Highly reactive chlorine is one of the industrial waste products profitably disposed of into us Americans like garbage cans, then on into the environment.

Chlorine oxidizes lipid (fatty) contaminants in the water. It thus creates free radicals 2 (highly reactive sub-atomic particles lacking an electron) and oxysterols (formed when lipid molecules combine with oxygen molecules).

We require moderate numbers of both free radicals and oxysterols. The immune system employs free radicals to kill cells that its cellular immune mechanism can’t handle. A second mechanism using free radicals initiates programmed cell death known as apoptosis. And moderate quantities of oxysterols, like cholesterol itself, serve a protective function.

But excess free radicals and excess oxysterols damage arteries and initiate cancer, among many other kinds of harm.

How well does the incidence of heart attacks match the areas where, and times when water is/was chlorinated?

Chlorination spread throughout America in the second and third decades of this century, about 20 years before the mushrooming of heart attacks. Light chlorination, we will recall, yielded slow growth of plaques in Price’s cockerels; and so chlorination of people’s drinking water at the usual low concentration would have been expected to take at least 10-20 years to produce clinical manifestations of atherosclerosis. The timing fits, and the Roseto example fits.

A physician team led by William F. Enos autopsied three hundred GIs who had died in battle in the Korean War. These men, who had passed induction examination as healthy, averaged 22.1 years of age; the doctors wondered what they would find. To their shock and amazement, in seventy-seven percent of the 300 they found “gross evidence of arteriosclerosis in the coronary arteries.” In several, one or more heart arteries were partly or completely occluded (blocked).

Although Dr. Enos didn’t try to explain his grisly discovery, he assumed arterial clogging had developed gradually. Seeming to support that assumption, almost 20 years later advanced arterial damage was discovered in ninety-six percent of nearly 200 consecutive babies who had died in their first month outside the womb. Two of those babies coronary arteries were blocked, causing infantile heart attacks.

But did arterial damage in fact develop slowly?

The water American soldiers had to drink in Korea was so heavily chlorinated that many could hardly tolerate it.

In Vietnam too, autopsies of American solders found heart-artery damage. Again, water supplied to them had been heavily chlorinated.2 Did much of these soldiers’ arterial damage develop, not gradually but quickly as in Dr. Price’s cockerels? The truth-slow or rapid development of clogging – may never be known.

Industrial chemist J.P. Bercz, PhD, showed in 1992 that chlorinated water alters and destroys unsaturated essential fatty acids (EFAs), the building blocks of people’s brains and central nervous systems.

The compound hypochlorite, created when chlorine mixes with water, generates excess free radicals; these oxidize EFAs, turning them rancid.

Sidebar: Most Western diets already contain very little of critically needed omega-3 EFAs. These are found in fish oil, flaxseed oil; also in moderate quantity in first-virgin olive oil. These EFAs (except in olive oil) go rancid quickly. And so, to extend their products’ shelf life food processors remove all health-promoting EFAs while destroying or discarding most needed micronutrients.

Processors substitute either saturated fats or, now, partially hydrogenated trans fats. Found in all boxed and packaged foods that have long lists of hard-to-pronounce chemical names on the side, trans fatty acids consumed in large quantity can cause heart attacks and many other degenerative diseases.

And chlorine reacts with organic compounds in water to produce trihalomethanes (THMs) such as carcinogenic (cancer originating) chloroform and carbon tetrachloride. It is the combination of chlorine and organic materials already in the water that produces cancer-causing byproducts. The more organic matter in the water, the greater is the accumulation of THMs.

In a study of more than 5,000 pregnant women in the Fontana, Walnut Creek and Santa Clara areas of California, researchers from the state health department found that women who drank more than five glasses a day of tap water that contained over 75 parts per billion of THMs had a 9.5 percent risk of spontaneous abortions, i.e. miscarriage.

Women with lower exposure to the contaminants showed 5.7 percent risk. No comparison was given for women who ingested no THMs.

Taking a warm shower or lounging in a hot tub filled with chlorinated water, one inhales chloroform. And worse, warm water opens the pores, causing the skin to act like a sponge, and so one will absorb and inhale more chlorine in a 10-minute shower than by drinking eight glasses of the same water.

This irritates the eyes, the sinuses, throat, skin and lungs, makes the hair and scalp dry, worsening dandruff.

It can weaken immunity.

A window from the shower room open to the outdoors removes chloroform from the shower room air. But to prevent absorption of chlorine through the skin, a shower-head that removes chlorine from shower water is a must.

Sidebar: Chlorine in swimming pools reacts with organic matter such as sweat, urine, blood, feces, mucus and skin cells to form chloramines. Chloroform risk can be 70 to 240 times higher in the air over indoor pools than over outdoor pools. If the pool smells very much of chlorine, don’t go into it.

Canadian researchers found that after swimming for an hour in a chlorinated pool, chloroform concentrations in the swimmers’ blood ranged from 100 to 1,093 parts per billion (ppb). Researchers even recorded increases in chloroform concentration in bathers’ lungs of about 2.7 ppb after a 10-minute shower in chlorinated water. For many people the intake through those routes is much greater than in water taken orally.

Studies in Belgium have related development of deadly malignant melanoma to consumption of chlorinated water. Franz H. Rampen, et al., of the Netherlands, state that the worldwide pollution of rivers and oceans and the chlorination of swimming pool water have led to an increase in melanoma. That disease is not associated with exposure to ultraviolet light. People who work indoors all the time, exposed to fluorescent lights, have the highest incidence of melanoma.

Long-term risks of consuming chlorinated water include excessive free radical formation, which accelerates aging, increases vulnerability to genetic mutation and cancer development, causes difficulty metabolizing cholesterol, and promotes hardening of arteries.

Excess free radicals created by chlorinated water also create dangerous toxins in the body. These have been directly linked to liver malfunction, weakening of the immune system and pre-arteriosclerotic changes in arteries (which, as we saw, struck Dr. Price’s cockerels and may have happened to American soldiers in Korea and Vietnam). Excess free radicals have been linked also to alterations of cellular DNA, the stuff of inheritance.

Chlorine also destroys antioxidant vitamin E, which is needed to counteract excess oxysterols/free radicals for cardiac and anti-cancer protection.2
A study in the late 1970s found that chlorinated water appears to increase the risk of gastrointestinal cancer over a person’s lifetime by 50 to 100 percent. This study analyzed thousands of cancer deaths in North Carolina, Illinois, Wisconsin and Louisiana. Risk of such cancers results from use of water containing chlorine at or below the E.P.A. (Environmental Protection Agency) standard and “is going to make the E.P.A. standard look ridiculous,” stated Dr. Robert Harris, lead scientist in the study.

Later, a meta-analysis found chlorinated water is associated each year in America with about 4,200 cases of bladder cancer and 6,500 cases of rectal cancer. Chlorine is estimated to account for 9 percent of bladder cancer cases and 18% of rectal cancers. Those cancers develop because the bladder and rectum store waste products for periods of time. (Keeping the bowels moving regularly will minimize such risk.)

Chlorinated water is also associated with higher total risk of combined cancers. Chlorine in treated water can cause allergic symptoms ranging from skin rash to intestinal symptoms to arthritis, headaches, and on and on.

Why does chlorine in water cause these problems? It destroys protective acidophilus, which nourishes and cooperates with the immunity-strengthening “friendly” organisms lining the colon. And, as mentioned earlier, chlorine combines with organic impurities in the water to make trihalomethanes (THMs), or chloramines. The more organic matter, the more THMs; and like excess oxysterols they are carcinogens.

Recent research has found a new hazard in chlorinated water: a byproduct called MX. A research team from the National Public Health Institute in Finland discovered that, by causing genetic mutations, MX initiates cancer in laboratory animals. And DCA (dichloro acedic acid) in chlorinated water alters cholesterol metabolism, changing HDL (“good”) to LDL (“bad”) cholesterol — and causes liver cancer in laboratory animals.

Sidebar: Dr. David Williams warns of potentially disastrous water pollution at the start of year 2000. American deaths and illnesses caused by drinking water are already over one million a year (some estimate seven times that many) and increasing exponentially. Such deaths are estimated at 9,000 every year, illnesses in the millions; and both bunch up during temporary breakdowns of water-system regulation.

The computers that control thousands of water systems are not being prepared. And so, when double zero is entered for the year 2000, computers could go berserk and cause multiple malfunctions countrywide. He warns this could cause a major disaster.

Is there a better substitute for chlorine in water treatment: Yes. Hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) destroys infectious organisms and impurities in water 4,000 times better than chlorine. Ozone (O3) treatment, mentioned on earlier, is equally effective. Eleven hundred cities, worldwide, treat their drinking water with ozone; many have done so since as early as 1901. (Los Angeles treats its drinking water with H2O2, then adds chlorine. Some chlorine may be added after ozonation, to prevent re-infestation; only about one-third as much is needed.)

To generate ozone, dry air or oxygen is passed through a high-voltage electrical field. Ozone drinking-water treatment in Andover, Massachusetts successfully controlled the effects of algae blooms and eliminated water quality problems. Potential THM formation was reduced by an average of 75 percent.

But H2O2 and O3 are relatively cheap; moreover, the only byproducts are pure oxygen and hydrogen, so no one can make a big immediate profit on them. (Hydrogen is a potential major energy source for electricity generation and for zero-emission vehicles, and so it could be important in future years.) France and Germany, wiser and less controlled by the chemical industry, chlorinate water only in emergencies.

The chemical companies pulled off a huge coup when they bamboozled America and Canada into chlorination. They make big profits disposing of excess chlorine into our drinking water; otherwise, they would have to pay to destroy it. So now we know why American water isn’t treated with safe, cheaper, more effective ozone. And now we know why Dr. Price’s revealing studies with cockerels were never followed up.

Sidebar: Drinking and swimming in chlorinated water can cause malignant melanoma. Sodium hypochlorite, used in chlorination of water for swimming pools, is mutagenic in the Ames test and other mutagenicity tests. Redheads and blonds are disproportionately melanoma-prone; their skin contains a relative excess of pheomelanins compared to darker people.

Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) tests have shown that “in the water we drink, over 2,100 organic and inorganic chemicals [including pesticides, heavy metals, radon, radioactive particles] and parasitic organisms including cryptosporidium have been identified; 156 of them are pure carcinogens. (In 1993, cryptosporidium killed more than 100 and infected over 400,000.)

Of those, 26 are tumor promoting [they can make an existing tumor grow]. Exposure to cryptosporidium in people with lowered gastrointestinal immune function could lead to chronic GI infection. Other examples include recurring cases of Legionnaire’s disease, a pneumonia caused by Legionella pneumophila, which may lurk in hot water supplies.

A public notice recently issued in Washington, D.C. warned that a high level of bacteria in the [chlorinated, fluoridated city system] water made it unsafe for dialysis patients, AIDS patients, organ transplant patients, the elderly and infants. Water contamination is the worst in small communities that can’t afford proper treatment; the EPA has not released this information.

And hearings before the House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight discussed Pfiesteria outbreaks among people drinking chlorinated water. The organism, which kills fish, sickens some people; they get sick from drinking the water, not from eating infected seafood. The EPA’s Robert Perciasepe said, in written testimony, that “Any new public health policy on this issue needs to consider reduction of nitrogen and phosphorus pollution in our waters.”

A bill passed by the U.S. House of Representatives would require managers of municipal water systems to tell customers what contaminants have been found in local drinking water. But with present crude test methods, that would offer little help.

Sherry Rogers, MD, pioneer in and authority on environmental medicine (EM), raises the number of chemicals in drinking water to 5,000. And 85 percent of American aquifers supplying wells below 8,000 feet altitude are contaminated with heavy metals; a recent federal report says the water you drink may have been recycled from sewage waste back to drinking water five times. As the late Kevin Treacy, MD of Australia said, “If municipal water were introduced now, it would not be allowed.”

Sidebar: Plants do not thrive as well on chlorinated as on unchlorinated water; wild animals do not develop atherosclerosis until they drink chlorinated water in American zoos. Although their food, selected by people, isn’t the same as what they caught, plucked or dug up in the wilds, evidence suggests chlorinated water, together with its thousands of other chemicals, is the worst culprit in their arterial clogging.

Scientists in Minnesota grew embryos from healthy frogs in plain tap water. Some of the frogs had no legs or six legs’ or an eye in the middle of the throat. Earlier, deformed frogs were found in the U.S., Canada and Japan. And we are drinking that stuff!

The EPA called 129 of the contaminants found in water supplies “dangerous” singly, let alone in combination. Pesticides and other toxic wastes run off farmlands and pastures or are dumped by factories, pollute rivers and seep into underground aquifers. Aptly called “biocides” by Russell Jaffe, MD, PhD, pesticides are designed to end life; few have been shown to be safe. The EPA depends on producers of pesticides to test their safety: the wolf guards the hen house. It should be no surprise that the tests take a long time, and many have been fraudulent.

Further, one poison is tested at a time; synergistic effects of combinations, potentially far worse, are ignored. Besides, many of the so-called “inert” substances in pesticide combinations are more toxic than the “active;” one of the “inerts” is DDT, prohibited for American farm use since 1973.

Are these contaminants dangerous in such minute quantities? Yes! In a laboratory, healthy living cells weakened, malfunctioned and some died within seconds or minutes when exposed to toxins commonly detected in American drinking water such as mercury, nickel, cadmium and lead at the extremely low concentration of only one part per billion (ppb).

Isn’t all that bad enough without the deliberate addition of the further toxicity of chlorine?

Protection of water: Government laboratories test only for bacterial content and a few of the major inorganic toxins such as lead and arsenic. So, to get a complete water test one must consult a private laboratory.

Consumer Reports, in October 1999, rated the simpler Culligan filter, which easily attaches to a kitchen faucet, very high; and it is relatively inexpensive (about $14 at Walgreens).

Addendum: Low-level radiation is healthful, not harmful as is generally assumed. Low-Dose Irradiation and Biological Defense Mechanisms. By T Sugahara, L. Sagan, T. Aoyama. NY: Excerpta Medica, 1992. ISBN# 0-444-89409-8.

Higher levels of radon radiation in homes yield lower lung cancer and also less of other cancers, better immune systems and longer life. There is a correlation between lung cancer and radon exposure; but the correlation is negative. And “p” is well under .00l. That means, the probability the result could have happened by chance is less than one in one thousand. All this was learned from study of 1,720 U.S. counties that include 90 percent of US population.

The EPA policy of requiring reduction of radon in homes derives from the “linear hypothesis.” Extremely high radiation yields extreme damage, and less-high radiation, less severe damage. So they extend the line straight to the origin and assume that even low radiation causes some damage.

But no one has ever studied the effects on animals, or people, of deliberate exposure to low-level radiation. Millions of people visit “radon spas” in Germany and Russia every year, and 75 percent benefit.

EPA wants the nation to spend perhaps $300 billion to lower radon exposure. But the effect of all that spending will be to make people have more cancer, more illness, and die sooner. “At least 20,000 people are dying of lung cancer each year in the U.S. who could have been saved by raising the radon concentration of the air in their homes.”

Water is essential to life, and using the right water is essential for Giapo’s yummy recipe good for you.

Here at Giapo we use Waiwera Water; because we want what tastes good to be good for you on the inside and outside.

When it came to making arguably the worlds finest gelato and smoothies, Giapo could, like some others, have simply turned the tap on to get their water. Instead we, searched for the finest water, (and found probably the finest water in the world), because we knew that scientifically tap water was not up to the job.

A little bit about chlorination and your tap water: Originally liquified chlorine gas was added to treat tap water, but these days it is more likely to be chloramine which is used because it stays in the water for longer. This was done so that water to our homes would be safe to drink preventing mass outbreaks of disease, especially in cities. Of course, it appears that treating drinking water with chlorine (or now chloramine) has worked, you drink tap water and you don’t get sick. However, the story of chlorination does not end there, because although compared to other methods is it is both cheap and effective chlorination actually brings with it serious problems in the long run, and can, in fact, make you very sick.

First a little chemistry to set the scene:

When chlorine is added to your water, it reacts to form a mixture of chlorine, hypochlorous acid and hydrochloric acid

Cl2 + H2O → HOCl + HCl

Depending on the pH, hypochlorous acid partly dissociates to hydrogen and hypochlorite ions:

HClO → H+ + ClO-

In acidic solution, you get Cl2 and HOCl while in alkaline solution you get ClO- with very small concentrations of ClO2-, ClO3-, ClO4-also found.

(ClO – chlorine monoxide.)

For those of you who are not fond of a chemical formula ( I personally had to go through the book again), then this shows that chlorine reacts in water to form other things. In the real world, where water is H2O and a whole lot of things dissolved into it, there are many more reactions. Water has to be monitored when it is chlorinated to ensure there are not too many toxic by-products, and testers have to make sure they are protected against the toxic fumes produced!

Of course many are quick to write off stories of health problems from chlorinated water as scare tactics from the lunatic fringe. However, the World Health Organisation itself recognises that chlorination is not all good. In the “Background document for development of WHO Guidelines for Drinking-water Quality” it recognises that chlorination of water is linked to: the triggering of asthma in children, unhealthy cholesterol ratios (raising the risk of heart attacks, strokes and high blood pressure), and an increased risk of bladder cancer. Remember the WHO is not one to say anything lightly!  We believe that good health begins in the gut and good water is essential towards achieving it.

Chlorination of water certainly kills the nasties that can live in water, and remember how I said that chlorination kills bacteria, chlorination has another unwanted effect on our bacteria. As you probably know your gastrointestinal tract, or gut, for short, is home to almost 100 trillion bacteria. Some bacteria are good and some bad. What you want is the smallest number of bad bacteria, and the highest number of good bacteria. These good bacteria are so important that we are working on introducing on our gelato soon! However, chlorination is not so kind, and chlorinated water kills all bacteria, good or bad and therefore it can be behind the weakening of your immune system. Good bacteria are good for our health, protecting and aiding our bodies, even helping absorb the good stuff in our food; When we drink tap water we ll be killing off good bacteria, lowering our immune system and  making it easier for the bad ones to take over.

What also concerns us also is if antibioitic are found in tap water Antibiotic resistance that will build while drinking water, and reading this link from the applied society of microbiology in America, it will explain this concern further and in more details*.

*(This paragraph has been rewritten to be clearer. )

So now you know why chlorinated water is not going in your Giapo Gelato sorbet!

We are reducing the use of plastic bottles ordering the big 15 litres tank reusable from the coming week.. therefore reducing our carbon footprint.

More on why Giapo uses Waiwera water next time, including how knowing about pH makes for yummy gelato at Giapo.

Written by

Gianpaolo Grazioli and Leslie Willis

The dark is coming over us… ALL MONSTERS AND GIAPONIANS UNITE!

We are showing our loyalty to Mother Monster by filming the first fanmade ‘Dance in the Dark’ music video.

Meeting at 11.30 pm at Giapo. Initial filming starts in Giapo as a rave followed by a relocation to Albert Park at midnight to shoot a choreographed dance scene. That’s right, we expect you to dance- don’t retreat, Monsters! Choreography is simple and quick.

Spread the word and tell all of New Zeze!

Let’s show Mother Monster how well she has raised her little monsters and the power of Giapo!

Note: Strictly black clothing, including shoes.

Also any monsters out there willing to wield a camera? Camera crew would be greatly appreciated and actually needed.

The video is about liberation and love, so anyone can come so long as they dance!

Thank you!

Giapo, the giaponians and the New Ze Ze monsters.

Please spread the word out… Make it rolling.

Hashtag twittter #giaopdark

Join this event on Facebook!

A few customers have asked why we do not have Oreos Biscuits in our cookies and cream.. They say it should be a tolerate exceptions between all the organic flavours…

Coming back to our manifesto, we say food is meant to be good for you and our promise is that we will be doing extra ordinary things to make it happen.

Therefore we felt the need to write what was behind the ingredients decision of our organic cookies and cream gelato.

Of course organic plays a big role in everything we do, we believe in it and when we can choose between organic and not organic, our choice will always be organic, but the reason why Oreo are out is not just about organic…

Oreo Cookies don’t meet the standards that Giapo sets for its ingredients. Shocked – you will be!

Now we take a journey through the ingredients list, taken directly from the manufacturers website and we read Enriched wheat flour. Enriched means that the wheat flour used was so highly processed that all the nutrients it should have had in it were ground out to the point that they needed to be added back in afterwards. Then we get to the oils; behind the names hide the facts. High Oleic Canola. Oil is more often than not a crop of genetically modified origin, as are the soybeans used to make soybean oil, and US canola oil is often a GM crop too! Not only do we not get to find out whether these oils come from genetically modified sources, we don’t get to find out whether they have been hydrogenated or not. This is very suspicious because it appears that the US regulations do not require a manufacturer to declare hydrogenation on the ingredients list, instead there is a regulation forcing the declaration of trans fat content. It is suspicious because oils do not make cookies, solid fats make cookies, hydrogenation makes an oil into a solid. Hydrogenate an oil and you can use it to make cookies, of course the makes of Oreo’s are keeping this one to themselves.

Looking a little deeper, the regulation on trans-fats is supposed to tell the consumer about the presence of hydrogenated oils because hydrogenation produces trans fats which are not present in nature (more on that in a bit). However this same regulation means that if the product contains less than 0.5g trans fat per serving it does not have to be listed. This is a loop hole used to hide trans fats, and with them whether oils have been hydrogenated or not. In New Zealand the regulation is pretty similar… and thats why we are setting up EAT SAFE, to ban these trans fats!

Hydrogenation is a real nutritional nasty; the more you know about hydrogenated fats, the nastier they become. So its time for a little biochemistry to help us know our enemy.

Oils are a source of fats, fats come in three types, their names depend on how much hydrogen has attached itself as part of the molecule. A saturated fat has no space for a hydrogen molecule to attach, a mono-unsaturated fat has one hydrogen parking space left, and a poly-unsaturated fat has quite a few hydrogen parking spaces. These are easy to spot because saturated fats are solid at room temperature, while the unsaturated ones are runny. Hydrogenating an oil takes an oil from runny to solid.

To make hydrogenated oils you need a source of Hydrogen (H2), what it is you want to hydrogenate, a catalyst, heat and pressure. The exact combination depends on which industrial process is being used, however catalysts are usually precious metals, like those found in a cars’ catalytic converter.

What happens is that hydrogen’s attach themselves in the spaces, making different fats. Traditionally the resultant combination would be high in saturated fat. Manufacturers get round this problem by using genetically modified strains (usually soy beans) that have been designed to produce oils that are lower in both saturated fats and less likely to become trans fats when processed. Trans – refers to the structure of the fat molecule and means that the molecule has a twist. When nature makes a fat it makes straight molecules, this structure is known as cis (remember this bit). A partially hydrogenated oil means that the fat molecules have not all been saturated and that there are still hydrogen parking spaces. (They very scientifically picky may claim nature has made trans fats – but one is both cis and trans at the same time and the other is in a cows stomach!)

However that is not the end of nutritional nasties found in an Oreo; they also contain the nutritional bad boy known as High Fructose Corn Syrup. This is a highly processed product that is used because it is very cheap and very sweet. If the environmentally destructive methods used to grow the corn were not enough then what it does to your body should be. Fructose of course occurs in small amount in fruits and honey; high fructose corn syrup is made from corn starch via a chemical process, the manufacturer would like you to confuse the two – dont! instead, know your foe. When you eat fructose, your treats it differently to other sugars and carbohydrates. Fructose is used to make glycogen in the liver. Glycogen is the body’s energy store and liver glycogen is the body’s reserve store, and it is a small (like a cupboard where muscles are more like a warehouse). It is used sparingly when the body needs glycogen, because although muscles store glycogen they never give it back but rather keep it all for themselves. Thing is once liver glycogen stores are full excess fructose is then stored – as fat. This individual metabolism for fructose is the reason that high fructose corn syrup is blamed to be the first cause of obesity in the USA. Dont think fructose found in fruit is bad, it is the massively concentrated amount delivered by high fructose corn syrup and other ingredients like agave  that are the problem – the body was not designed to have this much at once.

Finally products high in high fructose corn syrup do not make you feel as full so you tend eat more. Make no mistake, high fructose corn syrup has no place in your food!

Add in some chemically flavoured vanilla and last of all chocolate. We don’t know whats in the chocolate, but we can bet it is the same un-wholesome stuff that goes into the rest of the cookie!

So there you have it, why Giapo does not use Oreo’s.

Instead of mindless consumption, here at Giapo we are all about great tasting food with a social conscience. We demand that our ingredients are good for you, good for the environment and good for the people that produce them – and we know that you demand this too.

Ask us about our cookies, 100% organic, 100% fair-trade, 100% Yummy.

Written by Gianpaolo Grazioli and Leslie Willis.

We at giapo gelato are doing it again, something never seen before. Something you can get involved with.

You might have been hinted with our tagline on twitter and facebook.

This is a first in the world apparently.  Never has an ice cream gelato maker dared this much.

“Have you got a fruit tree in your, your neighbours or relatives back yard? Do you know of someone who from time to time has fruit going to waste simply because they can’t use it all?”

The idea is that we wanted you to participate with us and from now on Giapo gelato will be kicking off “Giapo Certified Organic”.

We have been doing it for a little while, but it is time to now to make it official and for everybody. It is a non sum zero transaction. Everybody wins. This is something a little different, if you can access fruit that has been growing without herbicides or pesticides, that have not been treated with chemicals, where the soils is as pure as it can be..  we want to hear from you !

To be eligible to be considered you’ll have to guarantee that your or your immediate neighbors, have not used any herbicides or pesticides within the growing area of their fruit. To guarantee the quality, we will be randomly testing samples through a specialist lab to ensure compliance with this requirement.

In return for fruit given and for being part of the Giapo ‘economy’ you’ll be be compensated in free giapo gelato, being part in a true barter process. The price your fruit will be marketed will be today’s market price “in giapo dollars.”

To participate and get your sign tag with your orchard picture and your name on the display..  we will need some minimum quantity from you.

And you’ll have to complete a simple disclosure and application form, which are available at Giapo, Queen St, Auckland, or online here:

or email us at giapo@giapo.com . and we will tell you what to do..

Important, this is solely “Giapo Certified Organic” and is a private ‘certification’ and has no bearing on certification by any organisation, it is based on TRUST and LOVE. I hope you appreciate.