Patrick

Recent Comments

• What's the Deal with Organic Pricing? (Slashfood)

  Sep 6th 2010 11:42PM Steve,
  
  I am happy you'd love to be corrected because...
  
  "Exposure to certain agricultural pesticides may be associated with an increased risk of prostate cancer among pesticide applicators, according to a large study looking at the causes of cancer and other diseases in the farming community. The study, part of a long-term study of pesticide applicators and their spouses known as the Agricultural Health Study (AHS), appears in the May 1, 2003, issue of the American Journal of Epidemiology*. The AHS is a collaborative effort involving the National Cancer Institute (NCI), the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, and the Environmental Protection Agency." http://www.cancer.gov/newscenter/pressreleases/AgricultureHealthStudy
  
  "Colon cancer risk was up to four times higher when exposed to aldicarb, a pesticide used on cotton, peanut, and soybean crops. Rectal cancer risk more than doubled for study participants with the most exposure to chlorpyrifos, a versatile chemical used to kill pests on food crops, tobacco, pasture land, and lawns." http://coloncancer.about.com/od/cancerresearch/a/04122007.htm
  
  "(Beyond Pesticides, September 29, 2009) A new study reveals that children exposed to agricultural pesticides applied near their home have up to twice the risk of developing the most common form of childhood leukemia, according to the Northern California Cancer Center (NCCC). The study, “Residential proximity to agricultural pesticide applications and childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia,” published in the October issue of Environmental Research, used a unique California database to reveal an elevated risk in acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) among children living near applications of certain categories of pesticides used in agriculture.
  
  The study, led by Rudolph Rull, Ph.D., shows an elevated risk of ALL associated with moderate exposure, but not high exposure, to pesticides classified as organophosphates (odds ratio (OR) 1.6), chlorophenoxy herbicides (OR 2.0), and triazines (OR 1.9), and with agricultural pesticides used as insecticides (OR 1.5) or fumigants (OR 1.7)." http://www.beyondpesticides.org/dailynewsblog/?p=2480
  
  "A Norwegian study of a large population of rural residents found that pesticide use was associated with cancer in young children of less then five years of age (2). Participation in horticulture and pesticides use was also associated with Wilms tumor, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, retinoblastoma (eye cancer), and neuroblastoma." http://www.envirohealthpolicy.net/kidstest/Cancer%20Pages/DoPesticidesCauseCancerinChildren.htm
  
  "A new study in PLoS ONE adds heft to a link between pesticides and obesity that’s been emerging for the past several years. Soo Lim, of the Department of Internal Medicine at Seoul National University College in Korea, is lead author. Lim and colleagues exposed a group of lab mice to low levels of the common pesticide atrazine. Then, they divided the group: half the mice ate a fatty diet, and the other half ate normally.
  The authors report that the pesticide decreased metabolism, increased body weight, and jacked insulin resistance even in mice eating the normal diet. A high-fat diet just made it worse.
  Furthermore, atrazine decreased oxygen consumption and hindered basic aspects of cell signaling.
  “These results suggest that long-term exposure to the herbicide ATZ might contribute to the development of insulin resistance and obesity, particularly where a high-fat diet is prevalent,” Lim and her team report."" http://anneminard.com/2009/04/14/day-80-pesticides-give-you-obesity/
  
  ""Evidence has been steadily accumulating that certain hormone-mimicking pollutants, ubiquitous in the food chain, have two previously unsuspected effects. They act on genes in the developing fetus and newborn to turn more precursor cells into fat cells, which stay with you for life. And they may alter metabolic rate, so that the body hoards calories rather than burning them, like a physiological Scrooge. 'The evidence now emerging says that being overweight is not just the result of personal choices about what you eat, combined with inactivity,' says Retha Newbold of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences in North Carolina, part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). 'Exposure to environmental chemicals during development may be contributing to the obesity epidemic.'" " http://www.panna.org/resources/panups/panup_20090917
  
  " Tributyltin, the main active ingredient in many pesticides, causes damage to the nervous, immune and reproductive systems of animals from water fleas to humans.
  
  But that’s not all. The chemical may interfere with cells, making people more prone to obesity.
  So far, tributyltin has shown to cause the growth of excess fat tissue in mice exposed in utero. This study published recently in a BioScience article shows a parallel between the rise in obesity over the past 40 years, and the rise in use of industrial chemicals over the same time period. The correlation is under scientific scrutiny but shows a “plausible and provocative” association between the two." http://www.chelseagreen.com/content/obesity-epidemic-linked-to-pesticides/
  
  "Licensed pesticide applicators who used chlorinated pesticides on more than 100 days in their lifetime were at greater risk of diabetes, according to researchers from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The associations between specific pesticides and incident diabetes ranged from a 20 percent to a 200 percent increase in risk, said the scientists with the NIH's National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) and the National Cancer Institute (NCI)." http://www.niehs.nih.gov/news/releases/2008/longterm.cfm
  
  "Cambridge University scientists are advocating more research into the possible links between environmental pollution and type 2 diabetes, the most common form of the disease. At least 171 million people worldwide suffer from diabetes, according to estimates by the World Health Organization.
  In today's edition of the British medical journal "Lancet," Drs. Oliver Jones and Julian Griffin highlight the need to research the possible link between persistent organic pollutants, POPs, and insulin resistance, which can lead to adult onset diabetes.
  POPs is a group of chemicals which includes many pesticides such as dieldrin, DDT, toxaphene and chlordane and several industrial chemical products or byproducts including polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, dioxins and furans.
  In their commentary, Jones and Griffin cite peer reviewed research which demonstrates a strong relationship between the levels of POPs in blood, particularly organochlorine compounds, and the risk of type 2 diabetes. " http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/jan2008/2008-01-25-04.asp
  
  ...so, yes, there appears to be evidence of a correlation.
  
  
  

• Swedes Study the Carbon Footprints of Their Meals (Slashfood)

  Oct 26th 2009 2:16PM Gonna ignore snoopy's comment entirely, but superfresh, I dont think I understand your either. "orchards offset carbon dioxide from the millions of trees." ??? orchards are trees, or rather, groups of them. and trees don't produce carbon dioxide, they consume it. might you elucidate your train of thought for me?
  

• Pimp My Burger - Burger King's New Whopper Bar (Slashfood)

  Mar 13th 2009 12:18PM I can't get excited about this. While on a recent trip to NYC, I had the misfortune of stopping at a BK on the turnpike. I tried their new 'angry whopper', one of the new attempts at gourmet burgers...it was heavy, greasy, with flavorless meat, cloyingly sweet sauce, not spicy anything, gross...and the burger alone cost over 6 dollars...the 'value' meals ran from $10-13. the only reason I can think that they call it 'angry' is because I was so angry I'd spent that much money on disgusting garbage. I can only imagine that whopper bars will basically be an upscale way to sell a continuously inferior product.

• An Interview with Stone Brewing Co. CEO Greg Koch (Slashfood)

  Feb 25th 2009 9:29PM Ruination IPA is an amazingly hoppy pale ale.

• Save Energy, Install Shag Carpet in Your Fridge (Slashfood)

  Feb 25th 2009 9:14PM um, why don't the refrigerator manufacturers just properly insulate their products?

• Tip: If You See a Woman Shoveling Guck Into Baby Food, Stop Her (Slashfood)

  Feb 22nd 2009 1:37PM So, according to James, this woman was shoveling Asians into baby food for 20 minutes and no one stopped her? I'm certain he didn't mean to refer to the gross stereotype that they're a more petite people, but it is offensive all the same. There's no way a single woman could fit one, let alone many, Asians into even a single jar of baby food. It's not physically possible and I think he should apologize.

• A Very Martha Stewart Super Bowl Party (Slashfood)

  Jan 27th 2009 1:10AM KH is an idiot. A sad, lonely, unattractive idiot.
  
  Anyway, I don't mean to be a downer, but after looking over these recipes I didn't see anything particularly inspiring. From what I saw, they were either pedestrian or misguided. I'm no fan of the super bowl per se, but I do enjoy eating and drinking; these recipes just seemed to miss the whole spirit of the thing.

• Epicurious's Top 10 Money-Saving Ingredients (Slashfood)

  Jan 24th 2009 6:19PM I was surprised cabbage wasn't on there. It's ridiculously inexpensive and a pretty good filler to many dishes.

• Cocktails That "Cure" Your Colds and Flu (Slashfood)

  Jan 15th 2009 9:38PM Chris:
  that's just booze, and perfectly acceptable. it's putting, say, theraflu or robitussin in with the whiskey that I object to.

• Cocktails That "Cure" Your Colds and Flu (Slashfood)

  Jan 15th 2009 8:48PM I'm as big a fan of drinking as the next guy, but I believe there's a very good reason why you're not supposed to mix cough medicine with alcohol. There are even warnings on the sides of the bottle that specifically say don't mix with alcohol. Emergen-C is just vitamin c, so that's fine (though take it from someone who has gotten drunk and fashioned a shot with this very ingredient: gross), but don't under any circumstances mix drinking with cold medicine. Unless you're a cast member of It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia, your body isn't meant to combine these ingredients.