goofballs

Scientists link Hot Dogs and Bacon to Lung Disease I just started reading "SALT: A World History", so its somewhat of a coincidence that I came across the article above linking nitrate ingestion (specifically sodium nitrate used to cure bacon, hams and sausages) to COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease). Ironically, bacon, ham and other similar products not treated with nitrates (sodium nitrite and sodium nitrate, specifically) are deemed by the USDA as "uncured" and can be labeled and sold as such; and in fact the sole difference between a cured and uncured bacon is this minor, technical distinction. Some of the curing methods the USDA recognizes are listed here: Ham and Food Safety Curiously, while some nitrates occur in impure sea salts (mineral nitrates) and from vegetable sources, USDA curing almost certainly requires the addition of synthetic nitrates that implies an industrial food scale. To wit, artisinal "cured" products may be labeled as un...

Michael Pollan's excellent Omnivore's Dilemma , ISBN-13 978-1594200823, features an anecdote about the Mayans early on in the first chapter. The Maya word that referred to themselves and their civilization was "corn walker," and often you hear Chicanos and other Mexican indigenous peoples using that term on themselves even today. But Pollan points out that in fact North Americans are truly corn, walking. The reason we know this is because corn is particularly greedy when it comes fixing carbon, especially carbon-13, from the atmosphere, which leaves a nice carbon trail throughout the food chain; to wit, our carbon-13 to carbon ratios in body mass often exceed persons with corn visibly more abundant in their diets (eg, the bulk of the average Mexican's diet consists of tortillas, tamales, things fried in corn batter, drinks made with corn, etc). But a more thorough look at the diet of a typical American reveals a food landscape overwhelmed with corn: high fructose ...