tagged w/ Unhealthy Food
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Let’s hope you’re not reading this column while munching on a chicken sandwich.
That’s because my topic today is a pair of new scientific studies suggesting that poultry on factory farms are routinely fed caffeine, active ingredients of Tylenol and Benadryl, banned antibiotics and even arsenic.
“We were kind of floored,” said Keeve E. Nachman, a co-author of both studies and a scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Center for a Livable Future. “It’s unbelievable what we found.”
He said that the researchers had intended to test only for antibiotics. But assays for other chemicals and pharmaceuticals didn’t cost extra, so researchers asked for those results as well.
“We haven’t found anything that is an immediate health concern,” Nachman added. “But it makes me question how comfortable we are feeding a number of these things to animals that we’re eating. It bewilders me.”
Likewise, I grew up on a farm, and thought I knew what to expect in my food. But Benadryl? Arsenic? These studies don’t mean that you should dump the contents of your refrigerator, but they do raise serious questions about the food we eat and how we should shop.
It turns out that arsenic has routinely been fed to poultry (and sometimes hogs) because it reduces infections and makes flesh an appetizing shade of pink. There’s no evidence that such low levels of arsenic harm either chickens or the people eating them, but still...
Big Ag doesn’t advertise the chemicals it stuffs into animals, so the scientists conducting these studies figured out a clever way to detect them. Bird feathers, like human fingernails, accumulate chemicals and drugs that an animal is exposed to. So scientists from Johns Hopkins University and Arizona State University examined feather meal — a poultry byproduct made of feathers.
One study, just published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal, Environmental Science & Technology, found that feather meal routinely contained a banned class of antibiotics called fluoroquinolones. These antibiotics (such as Cipro), are illegal in poultry production because they can breed antibiotic-resistant “superbugs” that harm humans. Already, antibiotic-resistant infections kill more Americans annually than AIDS, according to the Infectious Diseases Society of America.
The same study also found that one-third of feather-meal samples contained an antihistamine that is the active ingredient of Benadryl. The great majority of feather meal contained acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol. And feather-meal samples from China contained an antidepressant that is the active ingredient in Prozac.
Poultry-growing literature has recommended Benadryl to reduce anxiety among chickens, apparently because stressed chickens have tougher meat and grow more slowly. Tylenol and Prozac presumably serve the same purpose.
Researchers found that most feather-meal samples contained caffeine. It turns out that chickens are sometimes fed coffee pulp and green tea powder to keep them awake so that they can spend more time eating. (Is that why they need the Benadryl, to calm them down?)
The other peer-reviewed study, reported in a journal called Science of the Total Environment, found arsenic in every sample of feather meal tested. Almost 9 in 10 broiler chickens in the United States had been fed arsenic, according to a 2011 industry estimate.
These findings will surprise some poultry farmers because even they often don’t know what chemicals they feed their birds. Huge food companies require farmers to use a proprietary food mix, and the farmer typically doesn’t know exactly what is in it. I asked the United States Poultry and Egg Association for comment, but it said that it had not seen the studies and had nothing more to say.
What does all this mean for consumers? The study looked only at feathers, not meat, so we don’t know exactly what chemicals reach the plate, or at what levels. The uncertainties are enormous, but I asked Nachman about the food he buys for his own family. “I’ve been studying food-animal production for some time, and the more I study, the more I’m drawn to organic,” he said. “We buy organic.”
I’m the same. I used to be skeptical of organic, but the more reporting I do on our food supply, the more I want my own family eating organic — just to be safe.
To me, this underscores the pitfalls of industrial farming. When I was growing up on our hopelessly inefficient family farm, we didn’t routinely drug animals. If our chickens grew anxious, the reason was perhaps a fox — and we never tried to resolve the problem with Benadryl.
My take is that the business model of industrial agriculture has some stunning accomplishments, such as producing cheap food that saves us money at the grocery store. But we all may pay more in medical costs because of antibiotic-resistant infections.
Frankly, after reading these studies, I’m so depressed about what has happened to farming that I wonder: Could a Prozac-laced chicken nugget help?Let’s hope you’re not reading this column while munching on a chicken... more
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Fast-Food Dangers: case in point; Non-food half of chicken McNuggets and your well-being and health.Fast-Food Dangers: case in point; Non-food half of chicken McNuggets and your... more
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It’s important to pace yourself when on a geek quest of any sort, and this is especially true of those that, like mine, present a certain amount of personal risk. Having last week eaten a (beef) hamburger wrapped in 10 slices of (pork) bacon, I felt it wise to wait a week before attempting another such feat of consumption.
I had read online about several people, over the past five years or so, trying their hand at a burger made out of ground bacon, with no other meat included. I hadn’t intended to try it until later in my Great Bacon Odyssey, but several people suggested it after last week’s triumph, so I started thinking about it more and more. Then it occurred to me: In order to be truly worthy of me, and of the GeekDad name that means so much to me, my quest would have to take me beyond what other people have already done. And to make that possible, I would first have to prove that I was serious. I would have to conquer the bacon burger.
First, I needed to figure out how many slices I would need. I wanted to use the uncured bacon again, with no dry rub or any such thing, because I knew that if I were to have a prayer of eating the whole thing, I would need the burger to have as little salt in it as possible. I wanted a burger weighing about one-third of a pound, but I don’t have a kitchen scale.
The package had 22 slices and, according to the package, weighed 12 ounces. Assuming all slices were cut uniformly (which appeared to my eye to be the case), each slice weighed about 0.55 ounces. That would mean 10 slices (after rounding up), because 1/3 of a pound is about 5.33 ounces. But I wanted the burger’s cooked weight to be 1/3 of a pound, not its raw weight, and of course bacon loses a lot of fat during cooking. A little research indicated that the likelihood was that my bacon would lose about half of its weight during cooking. That seemed a bit high to me, especially since the bacon I’d bought had a good percentage of meat in each slice, so I figured starting with 19 slices, for a weight of 10.45 ounces, would cover me.
I wanted to cook the burger under the broiler, as I did with the bacon-wrapped burger last week, on a rack set over a Pyrex dish to allow the rendered fat to drain. Having read about the difficulties people making such burgers have had keeping them together, I decided to add one large egg to the food processor along with the 19 slices of bacon. I ground the bacon and the egg together, then, using my hands, pulled the mixture out and used a hamburger press to make a burger. It is possible that my hands have been greasier at some point in my life, but if so I have (fortunately) forgotten it. I was not quite prepared for the raw burger to look like pure fat, and I must admit that it didn’t look very appealing. But it was for science, so I soldiered on!
I put the burger on the rack-Pyrex assembly and slid it under the broiler. Having learned a lesson from last week, I turned the stove exhaust fan to high immediately. I peeked in on it as it cooked, and it seemed to be cooking nicely, with tons of little fat bubbles sizzling on top. After seven minutes or so, I took it out to turn it over, and was pleased how easily it flipped. Five minutes later, it looked done, so I took the temperature of the inside (you need to be careful with pork, of course), and it registered at 160 degrees Fahrenheit, so out it came. Now it looked like food, and smelled delicious.
For the rest of the story, I give you a video (below), shot by my lovely wife Jen using my iPhone 4. In this video you will see me eat the entire burger, with the exception of two bites I let my kids have, because what kind of a geek dad would I be if I didn’t let them try it? With a Dogfish Head 90-Minute IPA to wash it down and some mustard to cut the fatty taste, it was enjoyable for a while. After about half of it, it became more of an effort to keep eating, as you’ll see, but I did it, and could certainly have managed to eat the bites my kids took. Note: If you should notice a whirring sound in the video, that’s the fan behind my head, blowing out the window to clear some of the smoke from the cooking out of the house.
Would I recommend it? Reservedly, yes, but mostly because afterward you can honestly say you’ve eaten a burger made out of bacon, and not many people can say that. If you don’t care about the “honor” of it, I suggest sharing it with at least one other person, because it’s not likely you’ll actually want to eat more than half. I suggest uncured bacon so the salt doesn’t make your blood pressure spike. Cook it the way I did unless you want it to bathe in its own fat as it cooks. Oh, yes, and wash it down with something with a bite to it, because otherwise the taste of the bacon fat will likely overwhelm your palate.
As I promised, the awesome folks at ThinkGeek will send a $25 gift certificate to the first person who suggested the bacon burger to me. As far as I can tell, that person is dyarbrough, who left a comment on last week’s post. If you think you suggested it to me before July 6, please send me an email before the end of the day and I’ll check on it. And please keep those ideas coming! There are many more posts to come, and more gift certificates to earn.
Read More http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2010/07/the-great-bacon-odyssey-bacon-the-other-crispy-brown-meat/?utm_source=feedburner#ixzz0tsbXYTZQIt’s important to pace yourself when on a geek quest of any sort, and this is... more
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The consumption of these unhealthy foods is opposed to a healthy dietary pattern as they can lead to compulsive eating habit just like drug addiction due to the facts that they are loaded with a higher amount of unnecessary calories, fats, saturated fats and cholesterol. In fact, frequent consumption of these unhealthy foods can cause clogged arteries, heart attacks, stroke and other chronic diseases.The consumption of these unhealthy foods is opposed to a healthy dietary pattern as... more
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KFC surprisingly hit a marketing homerun with its Double Down, prompting IHOP to commit the fast food equivalent of fan fiction when it unveiled its own Pancake Stackers.
And speaking of fan fic, the Internets of course have devoured the craze, which is why we were not surprise to discover this makeshift version of a hypothetical McDonald's McNuggetWichMac. If you're thinking about your own take on this awesomely wrong new concept, we've got some suggestions for you.
check the link
http://blogs.sfweekly.com/foodie/2010/05/doubling_down.phpKFC surprisingly hit a marketing homerun with its Double Down, prompting IHOP to... more
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A new analysis of U.S. health data links children's attention-deficit disorder with exposure to common pesticides used on fruits and vegetables.A new analysis of U.S. health data links children's attention-deficit disorder... more
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Host Conor Knighton and team wickedly skewer the week in media. Includes Health Care Reform, a politician's survival guide to their gay crisis, sex addiction in the news, a Viral Video Film School Pop Quiz, and songs that celebrities like.
infoMania is a half-hour satirical news show that airs on Current TV. The show puts a comedic spin on the 24-hour chaos and information overload brought about by the constant bombardment of the media. Hosted by Conor Knighton and co-starring Brett Erlich, Sarah Haskins, Ben Hoffman, Bryan Safi and Sergio Cilli, the show airs on Thursdays at 10 pm Eastern and Pacific Times and can be found online at http://current.com/infomania/ or on Current TV. And make sure to check out our facebook profile for special features at http://infomaniafacebook.com.Host Conor Knighton and team wickedly skewer the week in media. Includes Health Care... more
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