McDonald's McRib: Ingredients

McDonald's is reasserting its McRib sandwich for the Holidays. For a limited time. Just while the dregs of the pork industry are in good supply.

From:
McDonald's USA Ingredients Listing for Popular Menu Items

McRib Bun:
Enriched flour (bleached wheat flour, malted barley flour, niacin, reduced iron, thiamin mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid), water, yeast, high fructose corn syrup.
Contains 2% or less of the following: salt, corn meal, wheat gluten, soybean oil, partially hydrogenated soybean and/or cottonseed oils, dextrose, sugar, malted barley flour, cultured wheat flour, calcium sulfate, ammonium sulfate, soy flour, dough conditioners (sodium stearoyl lactylate, datem, ascorbic acid, azodicarbonamide, mono- and diglycerides, ethoxylated mono- and diglycerides, monocalcium phosphate, enzymes, guar gum, calcium peroxide), calcium propionate (preservative), soy lecithin.
CONTAINS: WHEAT AND SOY.

McRib Pork Patty:
Pork, water, salt, dextrose, preservatives (citric acid, BHA, TBHQ).

McRib Sauce:
Water, high fructose corn syrup, tomato paste, distilled vinegar, molasses, natural smoke flavor (plant source), food starch-modified, salt, sugar, spices, soybean oil, xanthan gum, onion powder, garlic powder, chili pepper, sodium benzoate (preservative), caramel color, beet powder.

Nutrition Breakdown:
Calories: 500
   Calories from fat: 240 (almost half)
Protein: 22g
Fat: 26g
   Saturated Fat: 10g
   Cholesterol: 70g
Carbohydrates: 44g
Sodium: 980mg

A little more about the "McRib Pork Patty" from the Chicago Tribune:

"Restructured meat products are commonly manufactured by using lower-valued meat trimmings reduced in size by comminution (flaking, chunking, grinding, chopping or slicing). The comminuted meat mixture is mixed with salt and water to extract salt-soluble proteins. These extracted proteins are critical to produce a “glue” which binds muscle pieces together. These muscle pieces may then be reformed to produce a “meat log” of specific form or shape. The log is then cut into steaks or chops which, when cooked, are similar in appearance and texture to their intact muscle counterparts."
...
"Most people would be extremely unhappy if they were served heart or tongue on a plate," he observed. "But flaked into a restructured product it loses its identity. Such products as tripe, heart, and scalded stomachs are high in protein, completely edible, wholesome, and nutritious, and most are already used in sausage without objection." Pork patties could be shaped into any form and marketed in restaurants or for airlines, solving a secondary problem of irregular portion size of cuts such as pork chops."
...
"In 1981 McDonald's introduced a boneless pork sandwich of chunked and formed meat called the McRib, developed in part through check-off funds [micro-donations from pork producers] from the NPPC [National Pork Producers Council]. It was not as popular as the McNugget, introduced in 1983, would be, even though both products were composed of unmarketable parts of the animal (skin and dark meat in the McNugget). The McNugget, however, benefited from positive consumer associations with chicken, even though it had none of the "healthy" attributes people associated with poultry."

Not only does the McRib start with one of the most sorry animals, the factory-farmed pig, but it uses otherwise unmarketable parts from that animal. Likewise the McNugget, except with a chicken.________

Weight And Blame

From:
Personal Responsibility And Obesity: A Constructive Approach To A Controversial Issue, Health Affairs, March 2010

"The concept of personal responsibility has been central to social, legal, and political approaches to obesity.

[The concept of personal responsibility] evokes language of blame, weakness, and vice and is a leading basis for inadequate government efforts, given the importance of environmental conditions in
explaining high rates of obesity.

These environmental conditions can override individual physical and psychological regulatory systems that might otherwise stand in the way of weight gain and obesity, hence undermining personal responsibility, narrowing choices, and eroding personal freedoms."

Maybe it's my years of public health training that make me defend this position - that environment plays a larger role in our chronic disease crisis.

If I lived in, say, an Arctic village where there was one store and it sold only fruits and vegetables, that's what I would eat. Maybe a few fish. If it sold double cheeseburgers, sweetened breakfast cereals, oreos, ice cream sandwiches, soda, and chips, that's what I would eat. Maybe a few fish.

By the way, this paper advocates taxing food as a way to reduce obesity. I think reducing the cost of, and increasing the accessibility to fresh foods is a better idea. I don't know how ... maybe tax breaks for farmers who grow market produce or for retailers who stock produce in food deserts.
________Photo of an Arctic village on the eastern shore of Baffin Island, Canada, is from Ultima Thule

Whatever Happened To When College Was Free?

I'd like to see us abolish tuition for state colleges. I think education is really important for a country, for a people. It's something I'd love to see my taxes support. We could go back to a time when students didn't have to go into debt, or forego college altogether:

Whatever Happened to When College Was Free?, Anya Kamenetz in GOOD, April, 2010



If Finland, Norway, Germany, and Sweden can do it, why can't we?
________From Melinda's Facebook, where she linked this article:
GOP Opposes Obama’s Decision To Lower Student Loan Payments by 5%
which made me long for the days of free tuition.

What People Around The World Eat When They Wake Up

A look-see how people around the world break their fasts:
50 of the World’s Best Breakfasts

There's so much to say!

• First ... humans look to be omnivores.
• Eggs are a common breakfast food.
• Some type of processed, cured meat shows up a lot.
• Hawaiians are going to live, like, forever. (#7)
• The Turks don't mind washing dishes. (#50)
• When in doubt, fry it.

Germans like their food extruded:


Moroccans have a starch tooth:


Italians like art:


I like these next two. I think it's the spiciness I'm after.
Malaysian:


Indian:

________Thanks to BL.

Grinding The Wheat

I have been feeling under the weather. What does that mean? Under the weather? If I was feeling this particular weather, the cool fall breezes and fervent colors, wouldn't I be feeling dandy? Yucky is how I feel.

So, here's a photo of the sprouted wheat bread I was making as I was feeling yucky. It has some sprouted barley in it too. Gives it a nice caramelly flavor that roasted malted barley will do. I have just alienated all of Dr. William Davis' followers including the Wheat Belly author himself.



This is two cups of the dreaded whole wheat berry, a quarter cup or so switched out for whole barley (not the pearled kind). It was sprouting for about 48 hours. You can see the little sperm-tails on the wheat if you look close. The work of this Kitchen Aid food grinding attachment makes me wonder if our ancestors waited until this particular device was invented before they bastardized their diet with the likes of wheat. As it grinds it sounds like, I'm so sorry, insect exoskeletons crunching underfoot as you make your way to the latrine in the dark of night.

The final product lacks yeast, flour, oil, eggs, sugar, and sometimes even salt when I forget to add the 1/2 teaspoon at the end. This is the epitome of 100% whole grain goodness, or badness as you would have it. We have it with peanut butter and jelly.
________

A Life Of Crime

________

The American Dietetic Association's Sell-Out

This is interesting:

Pesticides Are Good for You, Big Food's Co-optation of Nutrition Professionals, Food Safety News, October 17

Michele Simon, a public health lawyer, reports on her experience at the American Dietetic Association's annual conference.

"The exhibit hall seemed more like a processed food trade show than a nutrition conference."

Education sessions were hosted by, for example, the National Dairy Council and the Corn Refiners Association. Culinary demos were offered by Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Hershey, and McNeil (maker of the fake sugar, Splenda). One session she attended, "Snacking and the 2010 Dietary Guidelines," was presented by "the largest snacking expert in the nation, Frito-Lay."

The comments were enlightening.
________

Old Beans

This is what was going on in my In-A-Pot garden while I was busy reading studies. These beans. If I let just 2 or 3 days go by without attending to them, they get old and seedy.



I had more beans than I knew what to do with this summer, growing out of this old laundry detergent tub. It was the most success I ever had with an edible plant.
________

Is Elevated Cholesterol Beneficial?

The study:

Is The Use Of Cholesterol In Mortality Risk Algorithms In Clinical Guidelines Valid? Ten Years Prospective Data From The Norwegian HUNT 2 Study Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice, September 2011

It found higher mortality in men with low cholesterol (less than ~193 mg/dl) and high cholesterol (greater than ~270 mg/dl) compared to men with levels in between (193 to 270). If you visualize that, it looks like a U-shaped curve.

Here's one graph from the study. The U-shape in the men's curve is evident. (You can convert mmol/L to mg/dl by dividing by 0.0259, so 5 mmol/L divided by 0.0259 = 193 mg/dl.)



You can see from this graph that women with high cholesterol fared even better than men. At about the 250 mg/dl mark, men's death risk was rising, but women's risk was still falling. (I thought this data had wide confidence intervals, those vertical bars. I think of that as a wide margin of error. The data was rather scattered and a good portion of people ended up with an increased risk, not a decreased risk, as their cholesterol rose.)

The authors say that since, in their study, risk of death did not go up as cholesterol went up, using this number is not a good gauge of early death, it overestimates risk. I imagine pharmaceutical companies would be loathe to hear this since it might reduce the number of candidates for cholesterol-lowering statin drugs.

I compared this cholesterol study with the vitamin study in my previous post:



There are some features which I thought reduced the internal validity of this cholesterol study, at least in comparison to the vitamin study:

• It based findings on one cholesterol reading taken when the participant was healthy and projected it across 10 years. A lot can happen to that number in 10 years. A lot can happen to it in a few months. What was their cholesterol in the weeks and months leading up to their death?
  
  
• It didn't collect data about cholesterol-lowering drugs. Some statins act as anti-inflammatories, which could improve the takers' health profile apart from effect on cholesterol. Given the current guidelines, many statin-takers would fall in the lower-risk (beneficial) valley of this U-shaped curve.
  
  
• It didn't adjust for several potential confounders, as you can see from the table. An important one was diet. How do you know that those with the supposedly beneficial cholesterol (193-270 mg/dl) weren't eating more fruits and vegetables? Weren't eating less fast food? Weren't drinking less alcohol? No data on food intake was collected.

Poor generalizability is an aspect that reduces the external validity of both studies (I mentioned this in the vitamin study). The population in this cholesterol study was fairly cloistered so it's difficult to generalize the findings to other groups:

"The HUNT 2 population is ethnically homogeneous (dominated by individuals of Nordic origin) and has been considered fairly representative of the total Norwegian population with respect to demography, socio-economic factors, morbidity and mortality."

So, these results do not apply to anyone not of Nordic origin who lived in Norway in the early 2000s. You cannot say that a total cholesterol of 170 mg/dl in an Amazonian native is indicative of early death. You cannot say that a cholesterol of 250 mg/dl is beneficial for a middle-aged Hispanic woman living in San Diego.

Along these lines, those of generalizability, you must also consider that Norwegians are relatively wealthy, healthy, and have good health care:

"Norway is an affluent country, and Norwegians are currently one of the longest lived people in the world. The rate of smoking among men is relatively low, by international comparison. The stable social structure could also play a part, including a well-functioning health care system with good access and coverage for all."

The US has relatively poor life-expectancy among developed countries, ranking 38th in the world. And its poverty rate is over 15%, with some regions even higher. The poverty rate here in Philadelphia is over 25%. Millions of Americans are uninsured or underinsured. So, in Norway, good healthcare or good genes could be buffering negative effects of elevated cholesterol. You don't know.

I don't think either of these studies are junk science, as I've seen the vitamin study described. Just my opinion. I think both of them are valid epidemiological studies, and raise the specter that both taking vitamins, and gauging death risk using total cholesterol*, are not good ideas. But I suppose if your criteria for "junk" is weak associations, limited statistical adjustment, and minimal input, then this cholesterol study, compared to the vitamin study, is junkier than junk.

* Certainly, there are other subparticles that may prove more indicative, perhaps HDL or Lp(a). This study assessed total serum cholesterol only.
________

Taking Vitamins May Lead To Earlier Death In Older Women

The study:

Dietary Supplements and Mortality Rate in Older Women, Archives of Internal Medicine, October 2011

They looked at intake of 15 supplements:

• Multivitamins (Absolute Risk Increase, ARI, 2.4%)
  
• Vitamin A
  
• Beta-carotene
  
• Vitamin B6 (ARI 4.1%)
  
• Folic acid (ARI 5.9%)
  
• B complex
  
• Vitamin C
  
• Vitamin D
  
• Vitamin E
  
• Iron (ARI 3.9%)
  
• Calcium (Absolute Risk Reduction 3.8%)
  
• Copper (ARI 18%)
  
• Magnesium (ARI 3.6%)
  
• Selenium
  
• Zinc (ARI 3.0%)

The 8 with numbers after them were associated with either an increased risk of mortality (all but calcium) or a decreased risk (only calcium). The others ... this study found no significant impact.

I think the risk increases are small. What do you think? Just 2.4% for taking a multivitamin? Copper stands out though, doesn't it.

There were 5 dose options on the questionnaire for selected vitamins. The benefit for calcium was lost at its highest dose. Also for calcium, "no clear dose-response relationship was observed." "For vitamins A, C, D, and E, as well as minerals selenium and zinc, no dose-response association was found." This was surprising to me. It looks like taking the vitamin at all, regardless of dose, was risky.

This was an epidemiological study, an analysis of data from participants in the large Iowa Women's Health Study. It's not appropriate to draw advice from this type of study, especially one with such weak associations. It's not a randomized controlled trial where they can specify doses, combinations, and types. You can however formulate or refine hypotheses. And the hypothesis that supplements fail to prevent chronic disease or even do harm is gaining momentum.

I would like to draw advice from it because, as you know, I'm biased. I think popping vitamins willy nilly is not a good idea. They often contain a pharmaceutical dose of an isolated chemical, along with fillers, binders, and other residuals like plastics and heavy metals that the food which contained the nutrient may not. For people who buy organic and local, who support Country of Origin labeling, why not apply this standard to supplements? I read that nearly all the vitamin C in the world, as well as glycerin used as filler, comes from China. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Assuming there really is an increased risk of death from consuming these vitamins, that risk, it must be said, doesn't apply to anyone but older (mean age: 61.1), white (99.2%) women who were postmenopausal (98.6%) who lived in the state of Iowa. I used to think, "Oh, sure it does." But you just can't say that since iron and folic acid supplements are harmful for a postmenopausal woman, they're equally so for a woman of childbearing age. And while multivitamins might not be good for older, white women in Iowa, they might be good for poor, urban teens who exist on cakes, chips, and soda, or for anyone with deficiency. People have different needs and tolerances.

The study's strengths:

• It was big (over 38,000 women).
  
• It collected data on supplement use three times over the time-course, not once at baseline which is what I normally see. As they said, "The use of repeated measures enabled evaluation of the consistency of the findings and decreased the risk that the exposure was misclassified."
  
• It adjusted for a lot of possible confounding factors, including:
  
  Age
  Energy intake
  Education level
  Place of residence
  Diabetes
  High blood pressure
  Body mass index
  Waist-to-hip ratio
  Hormone replacement therapy
  Physical activity
  Smoking
  Dietary factors: saturated fat, fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and alcohol (there was a food questionnaire twice during the time-course)

In fact, the assumptions people make about people who take supplements ... that they're usually more educated and take better care of themselves, were applicable in this case. Supplement users in this study had a lower prevalence of diabetes, high blood pressure, and smoking; had a lower BMI and waist-to-hip ratio; had a higher education level; were more active; ate fewer calories; ate more fruits and vegetables, etc. The analysis prior to adjustment for these factors showed taking supplements resulted in a lower risk of death compared to not taking them. Only after adjustment did the increased risk become apparent.

I think vitamins are helpful sometimes. For the well-fed, they can be a dross on the system.

Related: Comparison of this study's design to the Is Elevated Cholesterol Beneficial? study's design. This one is so much better.
________

Genetic Nihilism

Dean Ornish:¹

"People say, 'Oh, it's all in my genes, what can I do?' That's what I call genetic nihilism."

I've seen this. People throw up their hands and credit their particular ailment to genes. They say it doesn't matter what they do, that genes rule fate.

Ornish says:

"Genes may be our predisposition, but they are not our fate."

Of course genes are at the root of illness; they're at the root of life! But how they get expressed depends on their environment, which depends in large part on diet.

Ornish's quotes above accompanied a study he authored in 2008 which found that:²

"... the activity of more than 500 genes in the normal tissue of 30 men with low-risk prostate cancer changed after the patients began exercising regularly and eating diets heavy in fruit, veggies and whole grain (supplemented with soy, fish oil, the mineral selenium and vitamins C and E) and low in red meat and fats. ... [The men also] walked or worked out at least 30 minutes six days a week; did an hour of daily stress-reducing yoga-type stretching, breathing and meditation; and participated in one-hour weekly group support sessions."

Just this morning another study was published adding weight to Ornish's claim:

The Effect of Chromosome 9p21 Variants on Cardiovascular Disease May Be Modified by Dietary Intake: Evidence from a Case/Control and a Prospective Study, PLoS Medicine, October 2011

"An international team ... sequenced bits of the DNA of 8114 participants in the global multiethnic INTERHEART study. ... In addition, the study participants (Europeans, South Asians, Chinese, Latin Americans, and Arabs) were asked about their dietary habits.
...
The researchers confirmed that certain variants in these 4 SNPs were associated with a substantially increased risk of heart attack. Further analysis revealed that the type of diet study participants consumed was associated with this risk. They found that having a risky genetic variant was strongly associated with heart attack in the group with the lowest “prudent diet” scores—meaning they consumed low amounts of fruits and vegetables; risk of heart attack also was elevated, but to a lesser extent, in those with more moderate consumption of these foods. In contrast, those with risky genetic variants who had the highest “prudent diet” scores (meaning they consumed high amounts of fruits and vegetables) had a protective effect against heart attack.
...
The researchers also analyzed data from the prospective FINRISK study of 19 129 individuals in Finland, and found a similar association between the gene variant and dietary habits."
- Healthy Eating May Help Blunt Effects of Genes That Increase Heart Attack Risk, news@JAMA, October 11, 2011

The study concluded:

"The risk of [heart attack] and [cardiovascular disease] conferred by Chromosome 9p21 SNPs appears to be modified by a prudent diet high in raw vegetables and fruits."

Related post: It's Genetic, There's Nothing I Can Do
________
¹ Can Lifestyle Changes Bring Out The Best In Genes? New Research Shows Diet And Exercise May Change How Genes Act, Scientific American, June 2008
² Changes In Prostate Gene Expression In Men Undergoing An Intensive Nutrition And Lifestyle Intervention, PNAS, June 2008

Diabetes And Bones

I recently saw photographs of the actress Halle Berry on crutches. (See right for one.) Warner Bros. said she broke her foot "walking in Majorca on a day off from filming." Another source said she "stumbled over a rock and broke her foot."

It sounds odd to me that someone would break bones by walking, or stumbling over a rock. I know that Halle Berry has diabetes. And I know that people with long-standing diabetes (I believe she was diagnosed in her early 20s and is around 45 today) are at increased risk for fractures - type 1s because the low levels of insulin in early life lessen peak bone mass, type 2s for reasons not quite known ... poor vision, vascular complications, hormone imbalances. I suspect her diabetes contributed to her bone break.

Also, women at 45 are usually going through perimenopause or menopause, a time when estrogen and other hormones wane. These hormones help maintain bone.

An aside ... I thought Ms. Berry had type 1 diabetes until I read an interview where she claimed to have weaned herself from insulin injections by following a specific diet. Since type 1 involves loss of the insulin-producing beta cells, a condition not easily compensated by diet, it made me think she really had type 2, or perhaps MODY (Mature Onset Diabetes of the Young) where some insulin production persists. Although her diabetic coma at an early age does point to type 1.

Type 1's risk for osteoporosis is so high, and given her age, she may have been prescribed bisphosphonates. As I've written, these drugs can in fact increase risk for fractures.
________

No Starchy Vegetables For You!

We shouldn't be feeding our children potatoes, corn, lima beans, and green peas? Boy, times have changed.

Letter from the Editor: School Lunches, Food Safety News, Oct 9


________

OccupyWallStreet

If each generation has its call to arms, I like that this one chose to protest inequality. I didn't think this at first. I criticized their lack of specific issues. And I lamented that while they were bemoaning big business, voters were seating big business:

Republican Wins Democratic New York House Seat, Washington Post, Sept 14

"Turner, who ran as a staunch conservative embracing the tea party, will be the first House Republican representing this portion of Queens since the 1920s — a striking departure from its Democratic traditions. This is the district that sent the late Geraldine Ferraro, the Democratic Party’s 1984 vice presidential nominee, to Congress, as well as Sen. Charles E. Schumer, one of the party most consistent liberal voices.
...
This is a special election that is purely reflective of who showed up to the polls."

So it was nice to read Krugman's take on the protests it this morning:

Confronting the Malefactors, Paul Krugman, Oct 6

"What can we say about the protests? First things first: The protesters’ indictment of Wall Street as a destructive force, economically and politically, is completely right.
...
A weary cynicism, a belief that justice will never get served, has taken over much of our political debate — and, yes, I myself have sometimes succumbed. In the process, it has been easy to forget just how outrageous the story of our economic woes really is.
...
If the protests goad some politicians into doing what they should have been doing all along, Occupy Wall Street will have been a smashing success."

Note that he gets right back to how these protests influence government.

And Dennis Kucinich's take:

"To the young men and women who are braving the overreaction of local authorities to raise their voices against the corruption and manipulation of our nation that emanates from Wall Street: I say to you that your presence is making a difference. You are exercising the right every American holds most dear, the right of freedom of expression, and with that expression you are finally getting the attention of the nation.

Wall Street banks got billion dollar bailouts but the American people get austerity. Fourteen million Americans are out of work. 50 million people don’t have health insurance and a million people a year lose their homes to foreclosure. Our policies take the wealth of the nation and accelerate it into the hands of the few."

Let me add this bit by Krugman from a few weeks ago:

"According to new estimates by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, one-fourth of those with incomes of more than $1 million a year pay income and payroll tax of 12.6 percent of their income or less, putting their tax burden below that of many in the middle class."

12.6% ... Someone earning $35,000 here pays close to 30%.

Politicians are in the pocket of big business because big business knows that's how they get what they want. They corral the pro-business vote. I trust the protesters realize this - that government is a reflection of how people vote, or don't.
________

Are Retailers Waiving Food Safety To Buy Locally?

Are retailers waiving food safety standards so they can buy food locally? Produce industry insider Jim Prevor, the Perishable Pundit, says yes, they very well may be:

THE CANTALOUPE CRISIS
The Truth That Dare Not Speak Its Name:
The Priority Can Be Safe or The Priority Can Be Local, But It Cannot Be Both

"Yet, we would say it is not shocking. We also would say that whatever the specific cause of this outbreak, the more general cause is the local food movement. More specifically, the willingness of large buyers to waive food safety standards so they can buy regionally."

He says, "An awful lot of these cantaloupes wound up in Wal-Mart," which was peculiar given Wal-Mart's adoption of more stringent food safety standards in 2008. If Wal-Mart wanted to buy a safe cantaloupe, they wouldn't be buying a washed cantaloupe:

"What the California cantaloupe industry found was that one should not wash a cantaloupe. That moisture itself is the enemy of safety. California packers, who were proud of their wash systems, shut them off."

But:

"Jensen Farms washed all its cantaloupes," even though, "the science says don't get them wet."

And the outbreak does appear to be caused by a small producer who distributed locally:


Source

So why did Wal-Mart buy cantaloupes from a small, local producer? Were they setting aside food safety standards in favor of a marketing angle?

"What we do know, though, is that the food media and food industry has been complicit in deceiving consumers into thinking they can have it all. The Wal-Mart buyer, or any commercial buyer, can make a priority of safe or he can make a priority of local. It is a deception to think he can make both his top priority."

________

World's First "Fat Tax"

Denmark just imposed a tax on foods that contain more than 2.3% saturated fat.

BBC:

"Butter, milk, cheese, pizza, meat, oil and processed food are now subject to the tax if they contain more than 2.3% saturated fat."

ABCNews:

“Higher fees on sugar, fat and tobacco is an important step on the way toward a higher average life expectancy in Denmark,” health minister Jakob Axel Nielsen said when he introduced the idea in 2009, according to The Associated Press, because “saturated fats can cause cardiovascular disease and cancer.”

Saturated fats cause cancer? I'd be more inclined to believe other things in food like arsenic cause cancer. Saturated fat ... our body manufactures it.

“We get the taxes, but never a reduction on anything to complement the increases, such as on healthy foods,” said Clausen.

Boy, I agree with that. If you really care about keeping your population fit, subsidize produce. Dan Flynn over at Food Safety News reports, "a Belgian lawmaker said fat taxes would not change consumer eating habits, but "only fill the treasury."

Dan Flynn at Food Safety News:

"Taxes on food are among the most regressive in that they apply to commodities that must be purchased by low-income households."

That's why I'm against taxing food, any food ... soda, butter, sugar, chocolate. Soon we'll be taxing lettuce because of the health impact of consuming a food that's increasingly contaminated with toxic bacteria.
________

Arsenic In Chicken

I was curious about Dr. Greger's arsenic-in-chicken post. I looked at this study, which claims to be the first report of arsenic in national samples of poultry in the US:

Mean Total Arsenic Concentrations in Chicken 1989-2000 and Estimated Exposures for Consumers of Chicken, Environmental Health Perspectives, 2004

It found:

• The mean concentration of total arsenic in young chickens was 0.39 ppm, 3- to 4-fold higher than in other poultry and meat.
  
• At consumption of 60 g chicken/day (about 2 ounces), people may ingest 1.38-5.24 µg/day of inorganic arsenic.
  
• At consumption of 350 g chicken/day (about 12 ounces), people may ingest 21.13-30.59 µg inorganic arsenic/day and 32.50-47.07 µg total arsenic.

Look at those arsenic levels in young chickens floating above the rest. This was a decade ago, maybe things have changed:


I don't understand how bad that is, 0.39 parts per million (or 390 ppb) doesn't sound like much. Here's some background from Lasky's literature review:

Arsenic is a heavy metal. Chronic exposure in the range of 0.01-0.04 mg/kg/day (10-40µg/kg/day) has been associated with:

• Increased incidence of lung cancer, bladder cancer, skin cancer, and all cancers in Taiwan.
  
• Respiratory cancers in Montana
  
• Bladder cancer in Finland
  
• Increased mortality from hypertensive heart disease, nephritis and nephrosis, and prostate cancer in Utah
  
• Late fetal mortality, neonatal mortality, and postnatal mortality in Chile
  
• Genetic damage in Mexico

So, if someone weighed 120 pounds (54.4kg), exposure of 544µg per day might cause health problems. But...

In January, 2006, 2 years after Lasky published his study, the EPA officially lowered their maximum contamination level in water from 50µg/L to 10µg/L. It was based on work by the National Research Council which found that chronic low-level exposure to arsenic may be associated with an increased risk of hypertension, diabetes, skin disorders, gastrointestinal diseases, and cancer.¹

The NRC and now EPA say that chronic exposure to more than about 20µg arsenic in a day (assuming 2 liters water @ 10µg/L) is a human health risk?

Back to chicken ... Three pieces of chicken, say a thigh, breast, and drumstick (sans bone, skin, breading) weighs about 188 grams,² supplying, according to Lasky's work, up to 25µg total arsenic. A small bucket of KFC, with 8 pieces (2 each wing/thigh/breast/drumstick) contains about 402g chicken flesh supplying up to 54µg total arsenic ... 5 times the amount you would find in one liter of water containing the EPA's maximum contamination level!

Two final points:

1. The amount of arsenic in chicken may be more, as Silbergeld describes:³

"Lasky et al. (2004) probably underestimate the true risks. First, as the authors carefully noted, they had to estimate the concentrations of arsenic in muscle using the only U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) data available, analyses of liver concentrations. It would be interesting to know why the USDA does not analyze arsenic in muscle, the tissue most commonly consumed by humans. In 1981, Westing et al. (1981) reported higher levels of arsenic in edible muscle tissue from cattle given feeds containing poultry litter.
...
Under repeated doses (Hughes et al. 2003, in mice), the ratio of liver to muscle arsenic changed dramatically over time, and at day 17, arsenic in muscle was higher than in liver.
...
Thus, it is likely that the actual concentrations of arsenic in edible portions of broiler poultry are higher than the estimates of Lasky et al. (2004)."

2. The arsenic we get from chicken is in addition to that which we get from other sources, notably water, but also, dust, fumes, poultry litter (sold in organic soil blends, fed to cattle), and other arsenic-containing foods (seafood, rice, mushrooms, pork, eggs, apple juice...)

Why is arsenic in chicken?

"Arsenic is an approved animal dietary supplement and is found in specifically approved drugs added to poultry and other animal feeds."
- Lasky et al., 2004

Arsenic is toxic to organisms that infect chicken's intestines. By controlling these parasites, chickens grow faster and bigger. So, it's used as a growth promoter.

There really does appear to be a lot of arsenic in chicken.
________¹Arsenic In Drinking Water, 2001 Update, NAP
²Weight of chicken pieces sans breading, skin, and bones from NutritionData:
Thigh: 52g
Breast: 86g
Drumstick: 50g
Wing: 13g
³ Arsenic In Food, Silbergeld, Environmental Health Perspectives, 2004

Protein And The Kidneys

I am genuinely curious if low-carb proponents advise a high-protein diet for renal insufficiency.
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Finding Produce In Philadelphia

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"Shots Rang Out, As Shots Are Wont To Do"

I can't resist posting this:
Analogies and Metaphors Found in High School Essays

Some...

The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't. - Russell Beland, Springfield

Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two other sides gently compressed by a Thigh Master. - Sue Lin Chong, Washington

Her eyes were like two brown circles with big black dots in the center. - Russell Beland, Springfield

Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever. - Unknown

He was as tall as a six-foot-three-inch tree. - Jack Bross, Chevy Chase

The politician was gone but unnoticed, like the period after the Dr. on a Dr Pepper can. - Wayne Goode, Madison,AL

John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met. - Russell Beland, Springfield

The thunder was ominous sounding, much like the sound of a thin sheet of metal being shaken backstage during the storm scene in a play. - Barbara Fetherolf, Alexandria

He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant and she was the East River. - Brian Broadus, Charlottesville

The door had been forced, as forced as the dialogue during the interview portion of "Jeopardy!" - Jean Sorensen, Herndon

Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do. - Jerry Pannullo, Kensington

It came down the stairs looking very much like something no one had ever seen before. - Marian Carlsson, Lexington

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