Posted on October 30, 2006 by Gerald Pugliese
More than two dozen "food detectives" fanned out in the quest to determine where the contamination had occurred along the greens' journey from field to fork. They collected spinach leaves from processing plants. They frightened cows near fields of greens to induce defecation and collect their manure. They dipped beakers into water used to irrigate farms or wash the spinach.
- Wait, no more trans fat? Time to run out and eat Kentucky Fried Chicken—not! Well, I guess it’s still a good thing that KFC is switching to no-trans-fat soybean oil. But you still won’t find an Eat to Liver hanging with the colonel anytime soon. David B. Caruso of the Associated Press has more:
KFC's systemwide rollout is to be completed by April 2007, but the company said many of its approximately 5,500 restaurants already have switched to low linolenic soybean oil, replacing partially hydrogenated soybean oil.
- Why—since obesity is so bad—are there so many obese people in this country and abroad? That’s a complicated question, with probably no single answer, but one thing’s for sure there’s more than just one drawback to being obese—like Polycystic Ovary Syndrome, Robert Preidt of Healthday News explains:
Overweight and obese women are five times more likely than lean women to have polycystic ovary syndrome, a new Spanish study finds.
Polycystic ovary syndrome, which decreases fertility, occurs when the ovaries malfunction and levels of the hormone androgen in the body are unusually high. Symptoms include acne, excess hair growth, and irregular or no menstrual periods.
The idea of using economic incentives to help people shed pounds comes up in the periodic calls for taxes on junk food. Martin B. Schmidt, an economist at the College of William and Mary, suggests a tax on food bought at drive-through windows. Describing his theory in a recent Op-Ed article in The New York Times, Dr. Schmidt said people would expend more calories if they had to get out of their cars to pick up their food.
- I’m hardly trendy—text messaging, reality television, and the Atkins diet are all totally wasted on me. So it shouldn’t shock anyone that energy drinks don’t turn me on either. Although many doctors have taken notice because as Carla K. Johnson of the Associated Press reports caffeine overload is dangerous:
Nutritionists warn that the drinks, laden with caffeine and sugar, can hook kids on an unhealthy jolt-and-crash cycle. The caffeine comes from multiple sources, making it hard to tell how much the drinks contain. Some have B vitamins, which when taken in megadoses can cause rapid heartbeat, and numbness and tingling in the hands and feet.
Nuts and chocolate: Dr. Walter Willett, professor of epidemiology and nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health. "They might be cashews or almonds or something like that," he says. Not peanuts, though, because of the issue with allergies. He doesn't think sugar candy is a better nutritional choice. "That sounds like a little bit of lingering fat phobia," he says. "Sugar candy has zero nutrition. Chocolate does seem to have some health benefits."
