So here’s a study that says that Subway is just as bad for teenagers as McDonalds, based on nothing but counting calories. As though nothing matters except calories.
Category Archives: Culinary
Organs And Tissues
From a 3-D printer. Also, printed meat, though that’s actually harder, surprisingly. Could be handy on a space ship, though.
Faster, please.
Health Foods
That are killing you.
The Bee Mystery
I hadn’t known about this:
Researchers are making headway in mapping the genes that help bees overcome these obstacles, including which genes help them safely break down pesticides. Now researchers have identified several compounds that help turn on those genes. They’re present in honey, something commercial bees don’t get to keep–their food supply is taken for human use, and bees are feed sweet substitutes like corn syrup.
Wenfu Mao and colleagues found three compounds in honey that increase the expression of a gene that helps bees metabolize pesticides. The most important chemical is something called p-coumaric acid, which is found in pollen cells. By eating honey, which contains pollen, the bees are exposed to a compound that basically boosts their ability to break down dangerous chemicals. So honey substitutes like high-fructose corn syrup may compromise their health.
You don’t say. Corn syrup isn’t good for anyone. No reason to think it would keep a bee healthy, but apparently the industry fooled themselves into thinking so.
Now that they understand this, maybe there’s something they can do about it, and still harvest honey.
Carbohydrates
The lower limit of them compatible with human life is apparently zero.
It’s not a new result, but worth pointing out. #Paleo
Orcs
Asking the important questions: How and what did they eat?
Pig Farming
Trying to make it more humane and still affordable.
Of course, some people don’t think if a worthy goal. Iowahawk, who grew up on a hog farm (to the degree that he grew up at all), says that he doesn’t eat bacon because he likes it, but just for spite.
Chocolate
Is it good, or bad for you?
This article is like much nutritional “science” (including the lipidophobia), but it’s much more entertaining.
Nutrition “Science”
…and confusion about eggs and fish at the New York Times.
Low Fat, High Carb
I’m sure that this is just a coincidence:
It’s an interesting coincidence that this increase in obesity started roughly at the same time that the U.S. government started to advocate low-fat, high-carb diets. I remember that period pretty clearly, because I thought it was wonderful. Entenmann’s came out with no-fat pastries — the no-fat cherry coffeecake was one of my favorites — I could eat as much rice as I wanted, pasta was good and more pasta was better, as long as you didn’t use butter because of the evil saturated fat and cholesterol. But margarine, rich in transfats made by hydrogenating corn oil, was much better.
I remember that period clearly, too. It was during that time, after my father’s first heart attack at age 44, that the health gurus told him to go low-fat and eat more grains. Ten years later, he had another one, from which he died a month later. I blame the FDA/nutrition-industrial complex for his death (though it didn’t help that he smoked and had grown up on bagels, knishes and potatoes). And I find it particularly galling when idiots think that it’s anti-science to not buy the health-destroying junk science of the conventional wisdom, when the actual science indicates that it’s killing us.
[Update a couple minutes later]
In reading the Yglesias piece, it’s worth pointing out the flaw in the logic. No one is claiming that humans aren’t capable of rapidly evolving to accommodate dietary changes. That’s a straw man.
The issue is whether or not there is any evolutionary pressure for us to evolve to be healthy with a modern big-agro diet. In short, there is not. If you’re lactose intolerant in a dairy-based society, you’re unlikely to thrive or reproduce. But when it comes to grains, people do just fine on such diets when young, in terms of reaching reproductive age and rearing kids. The bad effects hit us generally later in life, when our genes no longer care (yes, I’m anthropomorphizing, but you know what I mean) whether we live or die, or are healthy or ill. So we go on, generation after generation, continuing to eat crap that’s bad for us, and our bodies not bothering to adapt.