"Catch It. Bin It. Kill It."

A new advertisement from the UK's Department of Health:

"Yes, you're all going down."
________

Tamiflu

Re: Ruby's comment:

Well, if drug companies are involved, I'm sure they protected themselves. Maybe they will share with us how they made themselves immune. It can't be this Tamiflu, because, by the looks of it:

Tamiflu Side Effects

... it's no picnic. There's a lot of post-market evidence of neural/nerve complications - numbness or cramping in extremities, mental disturbances such as delirium or hallucinations, and the big one: vomiting.

Has anyone ever taken it? Or another antiviral?

________

Egypt Slaughtering All Pigs To Stop Swine Flu

Is this story real?
Egypt Slaughtering All Pigs To Stop Swine Flu

All pigs? And they don't even have any cases of swine flu yet?

I should change the previous post to: Swine Flu And The Future Of Free-Range Pork.

________

Swine Flu And The Future Of Free-Range Pork

The current swine flu virus has fragments of human flu virus, pig flu virus, and bird flu virus. That mixing of traits may have contributed to this virus' ease of transmission (from pig), and suspected high virulence (from bird).

The pork industry recognizes the risks of a hybrid flu virus. I found this Fact Sheet from the National Pork Board, from 2004, that advises the following:¹

"Reducing interspecies transmission of influenza viruses: It is in the best interest of both human public health and animal health that transmission of influenza viruses from pigs to people, from people to pigs, from birds to pigs and from pigs to birds be minimized."

They itemized ways to reduce transmission between pigs and people, which focused on vaccination, hygiene, and sick-leave policy ("The farm owner should ... encourage [employees] to remain away from work when they are suffering from acute respiratory infections. People typically shed influenza viruses for 3-7 days.")

They also itemized ways to reduce transmission between pigs and birds:

"The global reservoir of influenza viruses in waterfowl, the examples of infection of pigs with waterfowl-origin influenza viruses, the risks for reassortment of avian viruses with swine and/or human influenza viruses in pigs, and the risk for transmission of influenza viruses from pigs to domestic turkeys all indicate that contact between pigs and both wild and domestic fowl should be minimized.

The following factors are potentially useful to reduce transmission of influenza viruses between birds and pigs:

• Bird-proofing - All doorways, windows and air-flow vents in swine housing units should be adequately sealed or screened to prevent entrance of birds. Although small birds such as sparrows, swallows, finches, wrens etc. are not thought to be important in the overall ecology of influenza viruses, they may carry influenza viruses from waterfowl feces into barns on their bodies.
  
• Water treatment - Do not use untreated surface water (because of waterfowl fecal contamination with influenza viruses) as either drinking water or water for cleaning in swine facilities. Likewise, it may be prudent to attempt to minimize waterfowl use of farm lagoons.
  
• Separation of pig and bird production - Do not raise pigs and domestic fowl on the same premises.
  
• Feed security - Keep pig feed in closed containers to prevent contamination with feces from over-flying waterfowl.
  
• Worker biosecurity - Provide boots for workers that are worn only within the pig housing units, thus eliminating the chance to carry bird feces into housing units from outdoors.

These recommendations clearly cannot apply to production units in which pigs are raised outdoors. Outdoor housing places pigs at increased risk for infection with avian influenza viruses."

This swine flu outbreak doesn't bode well for the future of free-range pork.
________¹ INFLUENZA: Pigs, People and Public Health, National Pork Board, January 2004

What Happens To The Pigs?

... during a swine flu outbreak?

Paul Roberts, in his book, The End of Food, wrote about what happened to birds, in this case chickens, during a bird flu outbreak that occurred in Canada in 2004:

"On February 15, 2004, Dr. Stewart Ritchie, a veterinarian in British Columbia's Fraser valley, got a troubling call from a local egg farmer."

"Stew," the farmer said, "something serious is going on here."

The egg farmer was calling to say his birds weren't well. Some had been treated for a low-grade virus, but...

"Although the virus in the first barn was a mild, or low-pathogenic, strain, the bug had rapidly mutated into a high-path strain by the time it reached the second barn, and it now threatened not only the valley's eighty-million-dollar poultry industry but its human inhabitants as well.

Canadian officials opted to depopulate the farmer's eighteen thousand chickens and isolate the farm within a three-mile biocontainment zone."

This next part ... whew:

What happened next has become a case study in the vulnerability of the modern food system. Efforts to euthanize the sick birds went almost comically wrong. Workers pumped the barns full of carbon monoxide, which didn't kill the birds but did blow virus particles out of the barns and into the surrounding air. A second strategy -- electrocuting the birds -- bogged down because the stunners were designed for old, or spent, birds, which are mostly skin and bones whereas the infected birds were large and fat; their executions generated huge plumes of greasy, virus-laden smoke, feathers, and other poultry particles.

Within three weeks, the virus had reached three other chicken farms and eventually spread to forty-two farms, requiring the culling of nineteen million birds.

Then on March 16, came word that a health worker with flulike symptoms had tested positive for H7N3: the virus had gone zoonotic."

This virus was not that virulent and the outbreak subsided. However, "attention quickly shifted to the massive tasks of disinfecting hundreds of poultry barns, and disposing of forty thousand tons of chicken carcasses."

With all due respect to the the human swine flu victims, I wonder what will happen to the pigs in Mexico.
________Photo of a disinfected hog farm in the Philippines from Adrian Ayalin's blog lagalag.

Recirculating Aquaculture

I received a very nice email from Christina at Food and Water Watch responding to my post, "Fish Farms Are Floating CAFOs". She said that their organization "advocates for recirculating onland based systems."

I'd never heard of these systems, so I Googled them. Here's a description from researchers at Virginia Tech:

"Recirculating aquaculture refers to a method of growing fish at high densities under controlled conditions in indoor tanks. This approach to fish production minimizes the amount of water and land needed, and greatly expands the opportunities to grow fish in geographic areas that are normally unsuitable locations for seafood harvesting."
- Virginia Tech, Recirculating Aquaculture Technology Is Warding Off Future Seafood Shortages (pdf), 2007

Some photos:



Fish farming sure has gone high-tech.
________Photos: Left from Department of Primary Industries and Fisheries, Queensland, Australia.
Right from Process Aquatics International, Downingtown, PA

What Percent Of US Infants Use The Food Assistance Program WIC?

I came across a statistic about WIC, the USDA's 3rd largest food assistance program (after Food Stamps and the School Lunch Program).

WIC is short for "The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children." It serves low-income pregnant, breastfeeding, and postpartum women, and children up to age 5. Besides food, it provides nutrition education and referrals to healthcare and social services.

Question: What percent of all infants in the US participate in WIC?

• 5%
  
• 10%
  
• 20%
  
• 30%
  
• 50%
  
• 70%

Update: Answer in footnotes below.
________

These pictures of cereal and eggs are from Washington State's WIC Approved Food List. From what I can tell, states share their graphics with the USDA. Washington State must have had a pretty good graphic set to get prime link space on the USDA's WIC page.

You can see the rest of their brochure at Washington State WIC Program (pdf). I learned a lot looking at this.
________The answer is 50%:

"Almost half of all infants and about a quarter of all children ages 1-4 in the United States participate in the program."
- USDA: The Food Assistance Landscape, 2008 Annual Report

Kellogg's Clinical Studies

Kellogg's fed children a breakfast of either their Frosted Mini-Wheats cereal or a glass of water. They then gave them "a series of tests each hour for three consecutive hours."

Results:

"A clinical study showed kids who ate a filling breakfast of KELLOGG'S FROSTED MINI-WHEATS cereal had 11% better attentiveness compared to kids who missed out on breakfast."

"A clinical study showed kids who ate a filling breakfast of KELLOGG'S FROSTED MINI-WHEATS cereal had 23% better quality of memory when compared to kids who missed out on breakfast."

What do you think?
________
Here's what the Federal Trade Commission thinks:

"The [FTC] alleges that both of the challenged claims are false and violate federal law."

Kellogg's this week agreed to settle the FTC charges. The settlement also "bars deceptive or misleading cognitive health claims for Kellogg’s breakfast foods and snack foods and bars the company from misrepresenting any tests or studies."

You know there's more of these "studies" out there.
________- Illustration from Kellogg's site: http://fmw.kelloggcompany.com/study-hall/. I wonder if it will still be there next week.
- I found this news via CSPI (Center for Science in the Public Interest), Federal Trade Commission Stops Kellogg from Claiming Frosted Mini-Wheats "Improve Kids’ Attentiveness" in School.
- When did we start calling children "kids?" I thought a kid was a goat.

Omega-6 And Omega-3 Content Of Common Foods

I often say one of the best ways to increase relative omega-3 in the body is to reduce the amount of omega-6 fat consumed. It's the ratio of the two that's important.

Here are amounts of omega-6 (N6) and omega-3 (N3) fatty acids in some common foods:

Click to enlarge.
If you're trying to hold your omega-6 intake at bay, lots of nuts and seeds probably won't help. But they're not the primary culprit in American's soaring N6:N3 ratio. Many processed foods and baked goods contain some form of omega-6-rich corn or soy oil.

Why Reduce Omega-6?

1. Omega-6 (N6) fatty acids are precursors to pro-inflammatory compounds in the body. Inflammation is good, it protects against infection. But high levels of omega-6 (relative to omega-3, I'll get to that in #2) have been linked to a range of not-so-good inflammation-based conditions. Think of illnesses with "-itis" at the end of them, e.g. arthritis, bursitis. A pro-inflammatory environment has also been linked to cardiovascular disease, diabetes, certain cancers, and mental health problems.
   
   
2. Omega-3 (N3) fatty acids are precursors to anti-inflammatory compounds in the body. Here's the thing: N6 and N3 compete for the enzymes that convert them into more biologically active compounds. So, when you have a lot of omega-6 around, it uses proportionately more of those enzymes. You're left with a pro-inflammatory environment and a bad mood.

Both of these polyunsaturated fats are considered essential for humans. Essential, meaning, we have to eat them; our bodies don't make them.

The Institute of Medicine says that an Adequate Intake (AI) for N6 (linoleic acid) is about 10 to 15 grams a day. The AI for N3 (alpha-linolenic acid) is about 1 to 2 grams a day. AIs are estimates, and as always they vary depending on age, gender, life stage, activity level, so many things. There's thinking that an optimum N6:N3 ratio is closer to something smaller, 4:1 or less. Some of us are eating a ratio of 20:1 and higher.

N6 and N3 often occur together in foods. Many foods that are good sources of N3 are also good sources of N6. Walnuts are a good example. They're a respectable food, but eating lots of them won't go very far in improving N6:N3 ratio.

(Walnuts have more N6 than N3, in a ratio of about 4:1. You can click through to the Excel spreadsheet I made to generate this graph, where I have the N6:N3 ratio listed for each food, along with saturated fat and calories. Look at that almond ratio: 1689:1!)

Another thing I learned doing this - When it comes to omega-3 content, there's hardly a difference between grass-fed beef and conventional beef. And neither of them provide more than a few milligrams in the raw state, probably negligible amounts after being cooked.

One more thing - Greens (Romaine, spinach, kale, broccoli, rapini, etc.) have proportionately more N3 than N6 (anything less than 1.0 in the Ratio column in my Excel sheet). Now that's a food where the more you eat, the more improved your ratio.
________Chart: Bix

What Predicts Survival In Long-Lived Cultures? (Part 2 of 2)

In my last post I reported results from the FHILL study (which I can now say stands for Food Habits In Later Life) that attempted to answer the question, "What lifestyle factors are best correlated with long life?"

The most modifiable predictor of a long, healthy life in FHILL's long-lived cultures was found to be diet (a plant-based Mediterranean diet that included fish). Cognitive function (memory), Activities of Daily Living (ADL score), and general health status were also correlated with long life. In fact, memory score had the greatest ability to reduce risk of death, however it's not thought to be as modifiable as diet.

Exercise and social activity were not found to predict long life in this cohort.

In this post I'll address the question, "What particular aspect of diet is best correlated to long life?"

Food intake data (at baseline), and mortality data (up to 7 years later) was collected on 5 long-lived groups (785 participants) in the FHILL study:¹

The 5 cohorts were the same as the previous post:

• Swedes in Sweden
  
• Greeks in Greece
  
• Greeks in Australia
  
• Anglo-Celts in Australia
  
• Japanese in Japan

Intake was broken down into 8 major food groups. Which of the following 9 variables do you think was found to be the most important predictor of a long life?

• Vegetables
  
• Legumes
  
• Fruits and nuts
  
• Milk and dairy products
  
• Cereals and potatoes
  
• Fish and shellfish
  
• Meat and meat products
  
• Ethanol
  
• Monounsaturated fat to saturated fat ratio

The answer - Beans:

"Only for legume intake was the result plausible, consistent and statistically significant across collective FHILL cohorts’ data. There is a 7% - 8% reduction in mortality hazard ratio for every 20g increase in daily legume intake."

(20 grams is about 3/4 of an ounce.)

In case you're curious, Greeks living in Australia ate the most beans, with Japanese a close second. Greeks living in Australia were also the group from the previous study who had the lowest risk of death.

Legume examples: Japanese consume beans as soy, tofu, natto, and miso. Swedes eat brown beans and peas. Mediterraneans eat lentils, chickpeas, and white beans.

One other finding of note: The less saturated fat eaten, the lower the risk of death:

"The monounsaturated:saturated fat ratio was associated with a 46% decrease in the hazard of death for every unit increase. This ratio was a significant predictor of mortality only when ethnic background was included as a confounding factor. Thus higher monounsaturated:saturated fat ratio (as reflected in intake of olive oil in the Mediterranean cultures) appeared to be protective against premature death irrespective of their ethnic backgrounds."

________
To cap: When researchers looked at long-lived cultures, diet emerged as the most important modifiable predictor of a long life, more important than exercise or social activity. When they looked at diet, beans emerged as the most important food.

I've never been a big bean eater, but these studies are changing that.

Update: See "What Predicts Survival In Long-Lived Cultures? (Part 1 of 2)" here.
________¹ Legumes: The Most Important Dietary Predictor Of Survival In Older People Of Different Ethnicities, Asia Pacific Journal Of Clinical Nutrition, 2004.

I really enjoy looking for photos to accompany my posts. I see so much, learn so much. For this post I was looking for something that represented food from around the world. Peter Menzel's "Hungry Planet" photos kept coming up, but since he's adamant that his photos not be shared I decided to look elsewhere. I'm glad I did because when I saw this photo of a supermarket (from IBM, no less), I was floored. This is how Americans gets their food. This is why Americans are battling chronic diseases. This photo says so much. And the post it links to, from SmartMoney.com, "Top 5ive Supermarket Tricks," describes the extent to which food retailers will go to hawk their unhealthful wares to unsuspecting customers. It makes me feel dirty walking into these stores anymore.

What Predicts Survival In Long-Lived Cultures? (Part 1 of 2)

I came across a few studies you might find interesting. I did.

They address three questions. Two of those I'll deal with in this post:

1. What nations have the longest, healthiest life expectancies?
2. What lifestyle factors are best correlated with that long life?

________
1. What nations have the longest, healthiest life expectancies?

The World Health Organization's 2001 report listed population health for its member states in terms of healthy life expectancy (Healthy Adjusted Life Expectancy: HALE).¹ Generally, HALE is the number of years "in full health" that a newborn can expect to live. Here were a few leading HALE nations:

Japan (73.8 years)
Australia (71.5)
Sweden (71.4)
Greece (71.0)

Switzerland (72.1)
Iceland (71.2)
Italy (71.2)
France (70.7)
Spain (70.6)
Austria (70.3)
Canada (70.0)
USA (67.2)

I singled out the 4 at the top because members of their populations were selected to participate in studies that tried to answer questions 2 and 3.

Answers to the next two questions are based on data from the famous FHILL study: "a cross-cultural study to determine to what extent health, social and lifestyle variables collectively predict survival amongst long-lived cultures."
________
2. What lifestyle factors are best correlated with long life?

Health, lifestyle, and diet data (at baseline), and mortality data (up to 7 years) was collected on the following 5 groups (818 participants) in the FHILL study:²

• Swedes in Sweden
  
• Greeks in Greece
  
• Greeks in Australia
  
• Anglo-Celts in Australia
  
• Japanese in Japan

Which of the following 8 variables do you think was found to be the most important predictor of a long life?

• Social network
  
• Social activity
  
• Physical activity
  
• Nutrition score
  
• Well-being
  
• Health score
  
• Cognitive function score
  
• Activities of Daily Living (ADL) score (ADLs are routine activities we all perform: getting out of bed, using the bathroom, dressing, bathing, eating. A high ADL score means a person can live more independently.)

The answer:

Click to enlarge.
The most important predictor of a long, healthy life was diet.* Although memory score had the greatest impact on risk of death, it's not thought to be as modifiable as diet.

All of the variables in the chart were found to impact life expectancy by themselves. Here they were analyzed together for comparison's sake. (Length of sleep and napping weren't included since they weren't found to impact life expectancy by themselves.)

Smoking within the last 5 years had a negative impact (a hazard ratio greater than 1.00) - it shortened life.

The most surprising thing to me was that exercise and social activity weren't found to be significant, at least as they were defined here.

The third question, "What particular aspect of diet is best correlated to long life?" I'll address in my next post.

* The diet score was based on how well a participant's food intake adhered to a plant-based diet, similar to the Traditional Mediterranean Diet (TMD), but which included fish. This TMD score was used because it was shown in prior studies to reduce risk of death in Greeks, Danes, Spanish, and Chinese. A high TMD score in this study reflected a high intake of vegetables, legumes, fruits, nuts, cereals, fish, and a high monounsaturated fat:saturated fat ratio (reflective of a high intake of olive oil), as well as a low intake of milk, dairy foods, meat, meat products, and alcohol.

Update: See "What Predicts Survival In Long-Lived Cultures? (Part 2 of 2)" here.
________¹ The World Health Report - Annex Table 4, World Health Organization, 2001 (big pdf file)
² Does Diet Mmatter For Survival In Long-Lived Cultures?, Asia Pacific Journal Of Clinical Nutrition, 2005 (little pdf file)

Photo of Japanese couple from ts's photoblog. There's a pretty moving story about this couple on the page where I found the photo.

Mercury Limits in Fish (Repost From Jan. 2006)

The current US do-not-sell limit is 1.0 ppm - that's 1.0 parts of mercury per million parts of fish tissue.

The limit was 0.50 ppm in the 1970's. Around that time canned tuna was found to surpass that amount. Subsequently, 12 million cans of tuna were recalled - and the limit was quickly raised. Canada's limit is still 0.50 ppm.

Here is the FDA/EPA's current table of mercury levels in fish. As you can see, the data is not recent. The FDA has promised to sample 29 species of fish this year to update their numbers.

Mercury Levels in Commercial Fish and Shellfish

Click chart for full table.
The FDA also said it would look into the concern over mercury levels in canned tuna - a concern raised by the Chicago Tribune's investigation:

"Responding to a Tribune series this month on mercury in fish, the FDA said it will review the possibility that there are elevated mercury levels in some cans of "light tuna," one of America's best-selling seafoods and a product the agency has recommended repeatedly as a low-mercury choice."

________
Back to the present (April 2009): I can't find a chart from the FDA that is more recent than the one above. As you can see, the data is old, in some places almost 30 years old, and there are a limited number of samples.

The Chicago Tribune published the results of their investigation into mercury in fish back in December 2005. <-- Worth a look. Some quotes:

• Reporters working for the Chicago Tribune conducted an 8-month investigation of mercury in fish.
  
• They tested 144 fish samples from the Chicago area - "one of the nation's most comprehensive studies of mercury in commercial fish".
  
• "The testing showed that mercury is more pervasive in fish than what the government has told the public."
  
• "Regulators do not inspect seafood for mercury - not in ports, processing plants or supermarkets." In fact, "no federal testing program exists for mercury."
  
• Even when found, "The government does not seize high-mercury fish that violate U.S. limits."

Mercury pollution has only gotten worse over the last 10 years. Although emissions from developed countries have declined, emissions from developing countries have been rising - and have offset gains here. (Mercury contaminates the atmosphere and is more a global problem than a local one.)

If I find anything else I'll post it. I thought this was a good article:
Mercury Pollution Threatens Health Worldwide, Scientists Say, Science Daily, August 2006________

Fish Farms Are Floating CAFOs

I'm in a quandry, so I thought I'd ask what you do. Here's another excerpt from Paul Robert's book, The End of Food:

"Fish farms are floating CAFOs*: A large-scale operation generates as much nitrogen-rich fecal matter as a human town of sixty-five thousand, creating enormous water-quality problems in the bays and inlets where these facilities are built."

One might argue that aquaculture is a more sustainable means of supplying seafood than is the dragging of 15-ton nets through vast swathes of open sea.

However:

"Carnivorous species like salmon and halibut are fed on fishmeal made from herring and other smaller species harvested by the same industrial methods that depleted other fisheries: nearly a sixth of the entire commercial catch is fed to farmed fish."

That consumption of smaller fish to support fish farms is called an externality: a cost to society that's not included in the price of the good.

I've been learning about externalities. In the livestock industry, some externalities are water pollution and greenhouse gases. The costs associated with those (clean-up, management) aren't included in the price of bacon or ground beef at the store.

I'm not sure what to do. Should I look for fish that didn't come from a farm? Or are farmed fish the better choice, considering how wild catches are depleting oceans and devastating ecosystems?

I can see one thing - those days of 99-cent all-you-can-eat fish fries are long gone.

* Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs), also known as "factory farms."
________The photo, from FishingHurts.com, is not one of farmed fish, but of small fish being gathered to be made into fish food. The caption read:

"The largest ships in the ocean often search exclusively for small "trash fish" who were once considered inedible but are now being slaughtered by the billions, ground up, and turned into food pellets for farmed fish. Hundreds of tons of fish are caught with each sweep of the ships' massive nets; they're dragged aboard and dumped into rotting cesspools such as the one shown, where they will suffocate and die before they are taken to a fish-pellet processing plant."

Bittman's Green Potatoes

This looks wonderful. Watch him pour that olive oil: Once ... twice ... three times. And, "If it seems too dry ... add some more olive oil!"

________

Beans May Lower Breast Cancer Risk - Color Doesn't Matter

Meat (red and processed) was just found to be associated with increased mortality - from cancer, heart disease, and other causes - in the largest prospective study (over half a million participants) investigating this link to date.

So, what may decrease mortality?

Beans. At least mortality due to breast cancer. So suggest the findings of this study that has also been making headlines:

Chemical Composition And Mammary Cancer Inhibitory Activity Of Dry Bean, Crop Science, Jan-Feb 2009

Researchers fed beans to rats. The number of rats that developed breast cancer (after being injected with a carcinogen) was 95% in the non-bean control group, and only 67% in the bean group. That's impressive.

Not only did beans reduce the incidence of cancer (how many rats developed tumors at all), but it also reduced the number of tumors in a rat that did get cancer - from 3.23 tumors down to 1.46. That's impressive.

Six types of beans were tested (2 crop years for each - 2004 and 2005):

Race Nueva Granada from Andean heritage:
White kidney beans
Dark red kidney beans

Race Durango from Middle American heritage:
Great northern beans
Small red beans

Race Mesoamerica also from Middle American heritage:
Navy beans
Black beans

Notice that in each of those three groupings (races), one bean was white or pale, the other was dark or colored. The researchers were trying to determine if there was something about dark-colored beans that gave them an edge over light-colored beans, since dark beans are known to be higher in antioxidants.

In fact, all three of the dark beans above were found by these researchers to be orders of magnitude higher in total phenolics and flavonoid content - both indicators of antioxidant content. The dark beans also displayed more antioxidant activity, as measured by an ORAC assay (Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity).

So, you'd think the dark beans would be better at inhibiting breast cancer? I thought that. They weren't. In this study, it mattered more what the heritage of the bean was (from where it was domesticated), than what color its seed coat was or what its antioxidant capacity was.

Although all beans reduced the cancer response, those from Andean heritage (white kidney and red kidney) performed better than the others (great northern, small red, navy, black). The improved performance of Andean beans was statistically significant.

Not only was the color of the bean not associated with anticancer activity, there was also no link found for protein content, fat, fiber, ash, or nitrogen-free extract.

The researchers were at a loss to describe just what it was about beans that gave them a strong anticancer effect.

I should note - the levels of antioxidants in cooked beans were markedly lower than in uncooked beans, to the point of being undetectable. This is because many antioxidant compounds are water soluble, leach into cooking liquid, and in this case were drained away. That didn't matter --> the cooked, drained, dried bean powder (with almost undetectable antioxidants) used in the study still had potent anticancer activity.

So, what do you think it is? What is it about beans? (I have a few ideas.)

________Note: Beans are not compatible with a number of diets, notably Low-carb diets (Atkins, Bernstein, Protein Power, and others) because of beans' carbohydrate content; Paleolithic or Caveman diets (Loren Cordain) because beans were not available in quantity during hunter-gatherer periods; Raw Food diets since sprouting alone doesn't improve digestibility enough to consume them in quantity; Locavore diets unless the beans were grown locally; and Breatharian diets whose followers claim food is not necessary.

Photo: That's a photo of some beans I had in my kitchen. The white are Great Northern Beans, the red are Dark Red Kidney Beans, the black are also known as Turtle Beans.

Snacking

I came across this list and I wondered what people thought of it. (Click to enlarge.)

________

Red Lentils

My latest bean.

________Photo: Bix

USDA Under Secretary Of Food Safety - Attorney Bill Marler Wants The Job

Seattle attorney Bill Marler is on Obama's short list for the USDA's Under Secretary of Food Safety. Here he explains why he feels uniquely qualified for that job:

Might need Quicktime Player to view.

My favorite line:

"I've learned a lot, and I think there's a lot I could, in a sense, give back."

The Under Secretary of Food Safety is part of the USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS):

"FSIS is the public health agency in the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) responsible for ensuring that the nation's commercial supply of meat, poultry, and egg products* is safe, wholesome, and correctly labeled and packaged."
- USDA: About FSIS

*The FDA oversees all other foods, from produce to peanuts to popsicles.

________

Global Food Consumption - Maps

These maps are via the United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). There are a few more there. (Map 7 - Sugars and Sweeteners - was interesting. China doesn't seem to have a sweet tooth.)

I posted the Meat Map as an accompaniment to the meat discussion. Then I saw the Cereal Map. It surprised me. (Click to enlarge.)

________

It's Not That Meat Is Inherently Bad, It's That We're Making It So

One of my commenters asked me where I stand on meat. That's a moving target, but ...

Humans are omnivores. We have the ability, structurally and chemically, to digest a variety of foods - plant and animal. We derive nutrients from both. That multi-functioning has helped us to survive millions of years of migration, treacherous weather, different environments. You have to love how industrious we are.

I think meat plays a role in a healthful diet. I don't think that role is big. And I think it varies from person to person.

Strict vegan diets provide some nutrients in such low amounts that it's best to supplement. Vitamin B12 and zinc come to mind. I have reservations about a diet that requires supplementation to be adequate. Why not get your nutrients from food?

However, the amount of meat humans as a whole (especially in the West) are currently eating is not good for the planet. If it's not good for the planet, it's not good for us, because we have to live here. Those two are inextricably woven. We have polluted ground and surface waters, increased incidence of foodborne illness, contributed to global warming, and placed millions more people at risk for hunger and malnutrition - all to satisfy our appetite for meat.

I think we're entering a time when the arguments over whether saturated fat (or protein or iron) in meat is good-or-bad will give way to the arguments about how much meat can be sustainably produced at all (and so, how much there will be to eat).

P.S. - The way we produce meat these days, resulting in cuts with more omega-6 fatty acids (not good), more organic pollutants, antibiotics, hormones, maybe E. coli, maybe prions (we don't test for mad cow), pushes me towards the lower consumption end too. And anyone who thinks large confined feeding operations breed happy cows doesn't give a whit about animal welfare. It's not that meat is inherently unhealthful, it's that we're making it so.

________ Cartoon by Ben Ciccati, from the Santa Barbara Independant's article, Industrial Meat Production Threatens Human and Environmental Health

Meat Intake And Mortality

This study made headlines last week:

Meat Intake and Mortality, A Prospective Study of Over Half a Million People, Archives of Internal Medicine, Mar 23, 2009

It's conclusion:

"Red and processed meat intakes were associated with modest increases in total mortality, cancer mortality, and cardiovascular disease mortality."

Facts:

• 545,653 (half a million) participants
  
• Aged 50 to 71 at baseline
  
• Followed for 10 years (1995 - 2005)
  
• Meat intake estimated from food frequency questionnaire
  
• Questionnaire collected info over the previous 12 months, completed at baseline
  
• Meat was grouped into "red" (beef and pork), "white" (poultry and fish), and "processed"

For a taste of what food frequency questionnaires are like, go here (pdf) to see the one used in this study.

The coverage the study received (Study: Lots Of Red Meat Increases Mortality Risk, Daily Red Meat Raises Chances Of Dying Early) was a little too enthusiastic, I thought. This study provided evidence that red meat and processed meat each increase risk for mortality. It suggests a hypothesis. It cannot, by nature of its methods, claim that high meat intake results in earlier death.

It does, however, add quite a big data-dump (half-a-million participants, 10 years of follow up) to the growing body of evidence supporting this association.
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Typing

This was interesting:

"Subjects who consumed more red meat tended to be:

• Married
  
• More likely of non-Hispanic white ethnicity
  
• More likely a current smoker
  
• Have a higher body mass index
  
• Have a higher daily intake of energy, total fat, and saturated fat
  
• Tended to have lower education
  
• Tended to have lower physical activity levels
  
• Tended to have lower fruit, vegetable, fiber, and vitamin supplement intakes."

Of course, all those confounders were adjusted for in the final analysis. Red meat intake, independent of those variables, was still associated with mortality.

White Meat Protective?

This was notable:

"When comparing the highest with the lowest quintile of white meat intake, there was an inverse association [except for CVD mortality in men] for total mortality and cancer mortality, as well as all other deaths for both men and women." [Emphasis mine.]

So, there was a presumed protective effect from eating white meat (rather, substituting white for red) - except for men. The more white meat men ate, the greater their risk for heart disease. (White meat included chicken, turkey, and fish.)

The association was really small though, so any protective effect of substituting white for red, if it existed at all, may also be small.

More Fuel

The associations were consistently dose dependant. The more red meat and processed meat eaten (as you moved up the quintiles), the greater the risk for mortality. This boosts the credibility of the association.

Population Attributable Risks (Or How Many Deaths Could Have Been Prevented)

The authors calculated:

"For overall mortality, 11% of deaths in men and 16% of deaths in women could be prevented if people decreased their red meat consumption to the level of intake in the first quintile." (Women could experience an even greater 21% decrease in mortality from heart disease by cutting back.)

What Is It About Meat That Could Raise Mortality Risk?

Possible mechanisms:

• Carcinogens in cooked meat (heterocyclic amines, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons)
  
• Carcinogenic N-nitroso compounds (in processed meat)
  
• Iron (increases oxidation damage)
  
• Organic pollutants (pesticides, dioxin, PCB) bioaccumulate in animal fat
  
• Saturated fat (linked to breast and colon cancer)

What Did Meat Groups Say?

The American Meat Institute, the National Pork Board, and the National Cattlemen's Beef Association dismissed the findings.
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