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Will Phosphates Give Us Cancer?

green coral lettuce
Let's face it -- we're screwed. No matter what we eat, or what we don't, there will be a study out there to tell us that our habits might ship us straight to the grave. I've given up caring, and just try to live with some sort of foodie balance, even if I can devour a few bottles of homemade pop in a day if I'm thirsty, or finish up Christmas cookies in the blink of an eye.

But back to the latest cancer-causer -- The Washington Post reports that a new study has found that rats who were fed diets rich in inorganic phosphates suffered an accelerated growth of lung cancer. However, Dr. John Heffner says: "an individual shouldn't act on these results as yet, other than to encourage funding organizations such as the National Institutes of Health to support research to see whether dietary phosphates encourage cancer."

What foods have phosphates? Leafy veggies. Fruits. Meat. Poultry. Plus, the stuff is added to other foods like baking powder, ice cream, preserves, and carbonated colas. See? We're screwed, so I say: Let's indulge!

Filed Under: Health & Medical
Tags: cancer, food studies, FoodStudies, phosphates

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Reader comments (Page 1 of 1)

wescraig

12-30-2008 @2:19PM wescraig said... The inorganic phosphates the study was concerned with are food additive, i.e., in processed foods. It was not concerned with phosphates found in, e.g., leafy greens. I agree, tho: no big shock that processed food might not be good for you.
Reply

Pyrofish

12-30-2008 @3:23PM Pyrofish said... I believe Hot dogs are a big inorganic phosphate source. Big surprise....
Reply

Mike Elgan

1-05-2009 @6:26PM Mike Elgan said... Rather than throwing up your hands and joining the "oh, what's the use" chorus, why not advocate fresh, organic food? Everything isn't bad for you. Just processed, industrial food.

Mike
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Michael Schmitt

12-31-2008 @5:45PM Michael Schmitt said... Wow... what a generality that "processed industrial food" is bad for you. Because organic butter is good for you. Because natural ice cream is good for you. Because raw milk with the potential pathogens in it (non-industrialized!) is good for you. Because improperly fermented and stored (canned=industrialized, right?) vegetables with botulism is good for you (because botulinum toxin is natural, so, it's good, right?!?).

And how does one eat fresh, local, organic food when living in the northern climes of the US in the middle of winter?

This extremist view that "anything but fresh, local, and organic will kill you" is amazing to me. Organic/natural pesticides and herbicides used in organic farming ARE STILL CHEMICALS!!! Organic/natural vegetables grown in the same plot of land over and over have the same amount of vitamins as their conventional counterparts.

Monika's philosophy on this mirrors my own. Be aware of the differences in the produced foods and eat your foods in moderation. I suppose I should be happy that I live in a land of plenty, and we're dying of TOO MUCH food, rather than dying of starvation. I have some relatives in Vietnam that would be ok with this "food problem" of ours...
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4 Comments / 1 Pages

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