Food for Thought
- Health & Medicine
The Shocking Science of Tender Poultry
Just over 24 years ago, I wrote a news note on Australian experiments using low-voltage electricity to stimulate beef muscles after slaughter. Data had indicated that applying up to a 110-volt current for 90 seconds to fresh, uncut carcasses would keep the muscle from tightening–and toughening–during subsequent refrigerated storage, even if removed from the bone. […]
- Earth
Mercurial Effects of Fish-Rich Diets
In the spring of 2000, one of Jane M. Hightower’s patients had been concerned about hair loss, so the internist referred the woman to a specialist in her building. That dermatologist probed the woman’s medical history but could find no explanation. That is, until she suddenly recalled a radio broadcast about mercury poisoning in people […]
- Health & Medicine
Acrylamide—From Spuds to Gingerbread
Just in time for the holiday season, the Bavarian Ministry of Health reports finding extremely high concentrations of acrylamide—a chemical that causes cancer in rats—in gingerbread. German chemists turned up acrylamide in a favorite holiday treat: gingerbread. Whether baked at home or fried at a restaurant, all hot-potato products cooked up substantial quantitites of acrylamide. […]
- Health & Medicine
Home Cooking on the Wane
Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Passover are among the few holidays on which home-cooked meals remain the norm. On most other days of the year, a large and growing share of U.S. diners happily leave the cooking of at least one meal to professionals. Eating in. Eating out. Home cooking used to signify meals with a healthy […]
- Health & Medicine
Diets to Ward Off Diabetes
Some 16 million people in the United States have type 2 diabetes, which used to be called the disorder’s “adult onset” form. In fact, its incidence has been skyrocketing, climbing by nearly 50 percent over the past decade alone. Even children are now developing type 2 diabetes, which is characterized by the body’s resistance to […]
- Earth
The Short and Long of the Food Transport Story
Food is really getting around. One week before Thanksgiving, a new study by the Worldwatch Institute in Washington, D.C., finds that food in the United States now travels 25 percent farther to reach the dinner table than it did just 2 decades ago. In the United Kingdom, food travels 50 percent farther than it did. […]
- Earth
Finned Pollution Is One Cost of Our Exotic Tastes
Diners in most countries are accustomed to having an international array of foods in their pantries and eateries. It started more than a millennium ago when spice traders plied the caravan routes linking China to Istanbul. From Turkey, traders shipped their condiments throughout Europe and eventually to the New World. Northern or Chinese snakehead (Channa […]
- Health & Medicine
Young Women Don’t Bone Up on Soy
Among the many reported nutritional benefits of diets rich in soy is a strengthening of bone in postmenopausal women. For these Golden Girls, who face an increasing risk of osteoporosis, soy-based foods can provide much-needed assistance in limiting the inevitable loss of bone. Although soybeans are best known for their oil, their protein is also […]
- Health & Medicine
Federal Government Launches Organic Standards
Though for decades some foods have carried the label “organic,” consumers never could be sure exactly what the term meant. Action by the Department of Agriculture last week should clarify things. USDA USDA On Oct. 21, USDA implemented regulations governing the production and labeling of organic foods. Until now, bodies from state governments to trade […]
- Health & Medicine
Distressing Gut Symptoms May Trace to Sweets
U.S. diners are notorious for having a sweet tooth. It’s hard not to succumb to the pervasive siren calls of sugary confections. Television commercials bombard viewers with enticements for presweetened cereals, breakfast bars, sugar-laden soda pop, and fruit-flavored beverages–many containing, at best, only about 10 percent real juice. Grocery stores seduce consumers with aisle after […]
- Health & Medicine
West Nile Worries Are No Reason to Give Up Breast-feeding
West Nile virus infections are spreading like wildfire–and not just through bug bites. Although the vast majority of the nearly 2,800 U.S. cases reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) so far this year were picked up from mosquitoes, at least 3 people–and possibly 15–appear to have acquired the virus from infected […]
- Health & Medicine
FDA Launches Acrylamide Investigations
You knew french fries and potato chips werent health foods. Sure, theyre veggies, but their deep-fat frying adds scads of fat. Depending on whos doing the cooking, that fat can be the saturated type, which can lead to clogged arteries. But until April, who could have suspected that these oh-so-yummy golden-brown spuds were also laced […]
