Health

According to an article from PonderingWillow, children in rural areas of Crete don’t get a lot of asthma or other respiratory allergies, and whenever you get some statistical outlier like that the scientists like to dive in and start slicing people open and poking at their insides. Well OK, maybe they don’t do that, but if it were rats without asthma, you could be sure they’d be at the border declaring 37,000 scalpels. In this case, all they could do without the pesky ethics board poking them was to observe the children’s diet. Guess what they found? A diet with lots of fruits and vegetables appears to reduce the risk of asthma and other respiratory allergies. Of course, the BBC is calling this the “Mediterranean diet,” so parents everywhere are probably stocking up on feta right now, which is just going to add to consumer confusion for another 30 years. I don’t know how “plant based foods” could be reduced to a simpler soundbite, but when you’re old and grey people you’ve known all your life are going to come up to you and say “hey, why didn’t you tell me about this vegan thing earlier?”

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Last week we talked about red meat’s influence on your sperm count (spoiler: it goes down), and that’s all well and good for the guys looking for an excuse to ban the beef, but what about the ladies? Well, as PonderingWillow reports, red meat also hates boobies, with a recent study finding a significantly increased risk of breast cancer in women who ate red meat regularly, and don’t even get me started about processed meats. Researchers spent 7 years looking at boobies, and at the end of it, the magic formula seems to be red meat bad, fibre good – the more fibre in the women’s diet, the lower their risk of breast cancer. Now, I just know there’s someone reading this who’s shrugging and saying they don’t eat steak, so I need to spell this out a little clearer: yes, red meat includes hamburgers.

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Dagda Samildanc sends word that red meat makes you stink. Now, be warned, that’s a link to the PETA blog, but here’s a direct link to the study in question, in case you’re scared that a direct connection to the P-word will make you catch something. Yeah, some people worry about weird things, I know. In any event, researchers put a group of subjects on a red meat diet and another group on a non-meat diet (it’s not clear from the abstract if it was just non-beef or not), and lo and behold, the non-meat group smelled better. “Significantly more attractive” was one of the phrases used, in fact. It’s a little long for a button, but “red meat makes you smell significantly less attractive” might fit on a fortune cookie. Does anyone else get the feeling scientists are slowly circling in on the taste issue?

I’ve been meaning to develop a process whereby I develop a new diet by keeping a food and odor journal – each day I’d ask 3 people how I smelled, and based on that I’d increase or decrease consumption of whatever I ate the day before. Sugar and scotch seem to produce the worst smells from me (through pores and, uh, other outlets) – has anyone else found their personal stinky foods?

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When I win the “most awkward wording inside a hyperlink” award next year (fingers crossed!), I’ll be sure to thank PonderingWillow for sending in the story that inspired me to write about mothers who eat a lot of red meat during pregnancy may give birth to sons who later have lower sperm counts. (The run on sentence submission window is full, sadly).

Anyway, it seems that if a woman eats a lot of red meat during pregnancy, her male offspring are more likely to grow up with a lower sperm count, and I mean low enough to qualify for ratings of “sub-fertile,” and yes, this is purely added to increase the length of this sentence, but hey, wouldn’t “sub-fertile” be a weird name for a sandwich or sandwich shop? Maybe the men who came from meat families can work on that, ’cause they’ll need a hobby for the time they save from not raising kids.

Scientists aren’t sure why the sperm count thing is happening. Some think it’s the hormones added to the beef, others suspect pesticide use, and others (well, me, who did study science in school but clearly didn’t apply it) suspect some form of karma. Seriously, why are people still eating red meat? I know from a body count perspective it’s better to eat big cows than many little birds, but hasn’t there been enough stuff condemning red meat by now for people to get the message? Folks, it’s going after your nads. How is that a good thing?

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Nessie reports that an 83 year old man has died after being pricked by the shell of a crab he was preparing to eat. This infected the man with a flesh eating bacterial infection, and even after amputating his arm, it was too late to save him. To be clear, I’m not laughing at this guy’s death. It sounds like a horrible way to go, and I feel bad for him – mostly because it was entirely unnecessary. He could have died from a drug overdose and I’d feel the same way. This particular bacteria is rare, but it’s generally found in shellfish. There are two ways to avoid it. I like the obvious (but generally unstated) one: don’t eat shellfish. The other way is to wash and brush the creature before cooking, and then use a lot of heat. I know my local veg hangout doesn’t have a problem, but can you guarantee that both you and your favourite restaurant do this every time?

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It’s official – New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson has signed the state’s anti-cockfighting (and thus pro-cockloving) bill into law, leaving Louisiana as the last remaining US state to support the practice. New Mexico’s new law will go into effect June 15. You know, when I see stuff like this and the foie gras and trans fat laws going through, I start to feel like measurable change is taking place. Then I read the animal slaughter statistics. Victories like this are becoming more frequent, which is awesome, but it’s important to remember that 10 billion animals were killed in the USA last year, and a lot of them had pretty crappy lives (and deaths). Still, I’ll be taking a moment to toast Governor Richardson this week, and I’m eagerly awaiting the day that Louisiana stands up and proudly says that they too love the cock. Link.

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Dagda Samildanc sends word of the next arena in the trans fats battle – animal products. Filed, I think, under the “I never needed to care about this” heading, is this little bit of trivia: while all the attention has been on trans fats that are created via hydrogenation or frying, there are naturally forming trans fats in most animal products. The recent New York City ban only targets the manufactured fats, but some slaughterhouses are reportedly starting to ask about governments’ future plans. Of course, they’ve got less to worry about, since this is another example of the double standard in US food policy. Hydrogenated trans fats are governed by the FDA, and I think the F stands for food, while most meat and poultry are regulated by the USDA. In the middle of all this, we’re starting to see cities like NYC step in and make new rules. I’ve seen half-joking threads about vegans starting their own country, but in this century, it looks like a city might be all you need. Link.

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Nessie notes that the FDA is poised to approve another powerful antibiotic for use in cows. In this case, the drug is called cefquinome, and it’s in a class of drugs that are generally considered to be the last line of defence against several serious human illnesses, so much so that drugs of this class have never been approved for use in animals before. The concern is that widespread use of the drug, like, say, in millions of cows, could accelerate growth of bacteria that’s resistant to the medication, as has happened in other animal antibiotics in the past. These bacteria are just as happy in humans as in animals. So why are people giving up their health insurance in favour of cheaper hamburgers? Well, mostly so they can get cheaper hamburgers. The FDA panel was told that the disease in question wouldn’t even be a serious issue except for the fact that US cattle live incredibly stressful lives, what with being packed into high-density living spaces and shipped in crowded trains for hundreds or even thousands of miles. This helps farmers make money, but it also wrecks the cows’ immune systems, hence the drug. But hey, at least someone will be able to have an affordable cheeseburger as their last meal at the hospital when the superbugs get through. Link.

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pseudoprometheus sends word that while it’s important to get enough iron in your diet, too much iron can be a bad thing as well, leading to potential complications such as heart disease, cancer, and diabetes. Vegans oftern give some consideration to iron levels, since plant-based iron isn’t absorbed as well as the animal based stuff. The thing of it is, animal based iron may be a little too easily absorbed: according to this article, just two servings of red meat a week provides enough iron for the average male omnivore, which leaves 19 other meals for iron levels to build and no easy way to reduce them short of bleeding. Now, lest you think I’m being sensationalist, I’m going to spend the rest of this post discussing the things I didn’t say, like something about omnivores setting off metal detectors, or scrapyards implementing a vegan-only hiring policy due to the risk of getting scooped up by the big electromagnets, or that omnivores are prone to overeating because they’re drawn to the fridge by the power of the magnets. Yeah that’s two magnet jokes in a row, I know, but I’m in a rush this morning. Got any more? Post ‘em in the comments. Link.

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