Real Food Blog

Eating Canned Soup Dramatically Increases BPA Levels

November 23rd, 2011

If you read the ingredient list on a can of soup, you’re likely to see items like carrots, wild rice, perhaps some noodles. What you won’t see listed: BPA.

But a little canned soup for lunch can dramatically increase exposure to the chemical, according to a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The study confirms that canned food is a source of BPA exposure. But it does nothing to clear up the question of whether this sort of exposure to BPA has health consequences.

BPA is found in some plastic bottles and in the epoxy resins used to coat the inside of many food and beverage cans. Previous studies have shown that some BPA from can linings does get into the foods they hold.

 

Some scientists are concerned about BPA exposure because the chemical can act like the hormone estrogen, and studies show that high levels can affect sexual development in animals.

But people are exposed to much lower levels. And agencies including the Food and Drug Administration and Environmental Protection Agency haven’t found evidence that this exposure is causing problems.

In the new study, researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health compared people who were given canned vegetable soup for lunch each day with people who got vegetable soup made without any canned ingredients.

And they found that a couple hours after eating, the people who had canned soup had BPA levels in their urine that were about 12 times higher than the people who didn’t.

The levels were still within the range that government agencies consider safe.

Even so, “We were surprised by the magnitude of the elevation,” says Karin Michels, senior author of the paper. Michels says previous studies have found much less dramatic increases after people drank from polycarbonate bottles.

It’s unlikely that soup caused BPA levels to remain high very long, Michels says, because the body tends to excrete most BPA within a few hours. But she says levels could stay high for people who regularly consume foods and beverages from cans.

Michels says she can’t comment on the health implications of the finding because that wasn’t part of the study. Even so, she says, food makers might want to consider eliminating BPA from can linings.

But industry groups say it’s not easy to find a safe, affordable and effective substitute for BPA in can linings. An analysis by the North American Metal Packaging Alliance (NAMPA) found that epoxy resins had significant advantages over the alternatives.

And without some sort of coating, metal cans can corrode, allowing bacteria to contaminate the food and putting consumers at risk for food poisoning.

“Consumers need to remember that BPA-based epoxy coatings are used to keep food safe,” said NAMPA Chairman John Rost in a statement issued by the group.

Source: NPR

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Most Honey Sold In Stores Isn’t “Honey”

November 13th, 2011

 

More than three-fourths of the honey sold in U.S. grocery stores isn’t exactly what the bees produce, according to testing done exclusively for Food Safety News.
The results show that the pollen frequently has been filtered out of products labeled “honey.”
The removal of these microscopic particles from deep within a flower would make the nectar flunk the quality standards set by most of the world’s food safety agencies.
The food safety divisions of the  World Health Organization, the European Commission and dozens of others also have ruled that without pollen there is no way to determine whether the honey came from legitimate and safe sources.
honey-without-pollen-food-safety-news1.jpgIn the U.S., the Food and Drug Administration says that any product that’s been ultra-filtered and no longer contains pollen isn’t honey. However, the FDA isn’t checking honey sold here to see if it contains pollen.
Ultra filtering is a high-tech procedure where honey is heated, sometimes watered down and then forced at high pressure through extremely small filters to remove pollen, which is the only foolproof sign identifying the source of the honey. It is a spin-off of a technique refined by the Chinese, who have illegally dumped tons of their honey – some containing illegal antibiotics – on the U.S. market for years.
Food Safety News decided to test honey sold in various outlets after its earlier investigation found U.S. groceries flooded with Indian honey banned in Europe as unsafe because of contamination with antibiotics, heavy metal and a total lack of pollen which prevented tracking its origin.
Food Safety News purchased more than 60 jars, jugs and plastic bears of honey in 10 states and the District of Columbia.
The contents were analyzed for pollen by Vaughn Bryant, a professor at Texas A&M University and one of the nation’s premier melissopalynologists, or investigators of pollen in honey.
Bryant, who is director of the Palynology Research Laboratory, found that among the containers of honey provided by Food Safety News:
• 76 percent of samples bought at groceries had all the pollen removed, These were stores like TOP Food, Safeway, Giant Eagle, QFC, Kroger, Metro Market, Harris Teeter, A&P, Stop & Shop and King Soopers.
• 100 percent of the honey sampled from drugstores like Walgreens, Rite-Aid and CVS Pharmacy had no pollen.
• 77 percent of the honey sampled from big box stores like Costco, Sam’s Club, Walmart, Target and H-E-B had the pollen filtered out.
• 100 percent of the honey packaged in the small individual service portions from Smucker, McDonald’s and KFC had the pollen removed.
• Bryant found that every one of the samples Food Safety News bought at farmers markets, co-ops and “natural” stores like PCC and Trader Joe’s had the full, anticipated, amount of pollen.

And if you have to buy at major grocery chains, the analysis found that your odds are somewhat better of getting honey that wasn’t ultra-filtered if you buy brands labeled as organic. Out of seven samples tested, five (71 percent) were heavy with pollen. All of the organic honey was produced in Brazil, according to the labels.

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Study Shows Benefits Of Organic Agriculture

October 8th, 2011

If you ask most people why they buy organic, they say that they think organic produce is healthier and tastes better. But studies have consistently undercut the backing for both of these motivations. Some studies have shown that organic fruits and vegetables have higher antioxidant levels than their conventional counterparts, but others have not. Some say that pesticide residue clinging to conventional produce could be dangerous, but others, including the USDA, have said that it’s harmless. Blind taste tests of organic and conventional fruits and vegetables have shown that most people can’t reliably tell the two apart. So does it really make sense to buy organic produce — especially given that it often costs so much more than conventional produce?

A major study on organics says, “Yes, absolutely.” But the study indicates that the best reason to buy organic produce isn’t that it’s worlds healthier or better-tasting than conventional produce.

Instead, the 30-year comparison of organic and conventional growing methods, carried out by the highly respected Rodale Institute, in Kurztown, PAshows that there are huge ecological benefits to organic agriculture. The study also goes a long way to disproving the oft-repeated mantra, “Organic agriculture can’t feed the world.” Side-by-side match-ups of the yield on organic and conventional plots showed no difference whatsoever in overall corn, soy or wheat production per acre. Indeed, in years of drought conditions, yields in organic plots were 30% higher than those in conventional plots.

On the phone with the Huffington Post, Mark Smallwood, executive director of the Rodale Institute, summed up the findings this way: “If we’re looking to feed the world for the next 50 years, conventional can do it. But if we’re looking at feeding the world for the next 1500 years, we must switch over to organic.”

There is one caveat. The Rodale Institute’s study compared yields in relatively small (50′ x 30′) plots of land, not entire farms. Macro-scale studies of yields on organic and conventional farms have sometimes produced dispiriting figures on organic yields.

But, especially when it comes to a long-term comparison of the two methods, the Institute’s reportsupports this conclusion with some eye-opening statistics.

Much of the sustainability gap between conventional and organic systems can be attributed to differences in total petroleum-product use. Both methods call for diesel fuel to power tractors and farm equipment. But 41% of conventional systems’ petroleum goes to nitrogen-based fertilizers, which cannot be used on organic farms. This means that organic agriculture uses 45% less unsustainable energy than conventional agriculture. For similar reasons, organic farms produce 40% less greenhouse gas emissions than conventional farms.

The other key divide between the two systems was related to soil health. Conventional agricultural systems rely on crude-oil-dependent artificial fertilizers for the soil’s macronutrient content. This means that, unlike organic systems, they do not support the soil’s microbiological community, which can produce the same macronutrients without the use of crude oil. So when oil supplies start to run out, conventional farms will be left without a reliable way to maintain their soil’s macronutrient base — while organic farms’ soil will be virtually unaffected. That same macrobiological community also helps organic soil retain water, which fights erosion and drought.

The study even indicated that organic produce was cheaper for farmers to grow than conventional produce. Organics’ marginally higher labor costs are offset by the savings of not buying fertilizer. The cost parity of the two is borne out by national data on farmer incomes. According to census data, organic farms are almost twice as profitable as conventional ones.

 

So why is organic produce more expensive? “One of the reasons is that there aren’t enough organic farms. It’s because demand is higher than supply,” Smallwood said. “It’s simple economics.”

This demand may be driven more by overblown health claims than by ecological altruism. But the Rodale Institute study shows that ecologically benefits of organic agriculture are so great that anything that helps encourage it is probably good — even something that could be called a noble lie.

Source:  Huffington Post

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The Creepy History Of Margarine

September 17th, 2011

Where did the name “margarine” originate?

In a chemist’s lab. French scientist Michel Eugene Chevreul discovered a new fatty acid in 1813 that he dubbed acide margarique. Chevreul’s discovery contained lustrous, pearly deposits, so he named it after the Greek word margarites, for “pearly.”

Did Chevreul take his margaric acid and head straight for the toaster?

Not quite. If you enjoy margarine, tip your cap to Emperor Napoleon III. Napoleon III saw that both his poorer subjects and his navy would benefit from having easy access to a cheap butter substitute, so he offered a prize for anyone who could create an adequate replacement. Enter French chemist Hippolyte Mège-Mouriès. In 1869, Mège-Mouriès perfected and patented a process for churning beef tallow with milk to create an acceptable butter substitute, thereby winning the Emperor’s prize.

So Mège-Mouriès became the first margarine tycoon?

Far from it. Despite Napoleon III’s high hopes for Mège-Mouriès’ product, which the scientist had dubbed “oleomargarine,” the market didn’t really take off. In 1871, Mège-Mouriès showed his process to a Dutch company that improved on his methods and helped build an international market for margarine. The Dutch entrepreneurs realized that if margarine were going to become a substitute for butter, it needed to look like butter, so they began dyeing margarine, which is naturally white, a buttery yellow. Mège-Mouriès didn’t get a princely sum for his invention; he actually died a pauper in 1880. The Dutch company that improved upon his recipe did pretty well for itself, though. The company, Jurgens, eventually became a world-renowned maker of margarines and soaps and later became a part of Unilever.

How did the dairy world react to margarine’s sudden popularity?

They were predictably more than a little irked. Butter was big business, and the notion that a cheaper substitute, even one made in part with milk, might storm the market terrified dairy farmers. They didn’t take the threat lying down, though, and convinced legislators to tax margarine at a rate of two cents per pound—no small sum in the late 19th century. Dairy farmers also successfully lobbied for restrictions that banned the use of yellow dyes to make margarine look more appetizing. By 1900, artificially colored butter was contraband in 30 U.S. states. Several states took even more extreme measures to turn consumers away from margarine—they required the product to be dyed an unappealing pink color.

Wow, that’s pretty stringent. Did other countries enact similar restrictions?

If you think taxes and dyes are tough, then the Canadian government’s anti-margarine campaign seems downright draconian. From 1886 until 1948, Canadian law banned any and all margarine. The only exception to this rule came between 1917 and 1923, when World War I and its aftermath left butter in short supply and the government temporarily gave margarine the thumbs up. Margarine didn’t necessarily have an easier time after the ban was relaxed, either. Quebec’s strong dairy lobby ensured that rules against dyeing remained in place in the province until 2008.

Was there any way around these color restrictions?

Sure. It sounds almost laughable now, but if you wanted to eat margarine on your toast without having to stare at its natural white color, there was a solution. As the coloring restrictions became widespread around the turn of the 20th century, margarine producers accepted that they couldn’t dye their wares yellow. There was no reason why they couldn’t simultaneously sell consumers margarine and yellow dye, though. When you bought a block or tube of margarine, you also got a packet of food coloring that could be kneaded into the margarine by hand.

What helped margarine stay competitive with butter in the face of these restrictions?

More restrictions, of course. Paradoxically, the pure foods movement of the 1920s helped undermine natural butter and elevate the status of margarine. In 1923 Congress passed a law that made it illegal to add any other ingredients to butter, even additives that would help make the butter more spreadable. As any toast aficionado knows, margarine is a heck of a lot easier to spread than butter. Suddenly, butter makers couldn’t tweak their products to make it easier to slather on breakfast, but margarine manufacturers could. Margarine’s popularity skyrocketed. Margarine also got a bit bump from World War II. When wartime butter scarcity forced consumers to switch to margarine, lots of margarine holdouts realized that the improved product wasn’t so bad after all. In 1950, the U.S. government repealed the heavy margarine tax, and the market continued to grow as individual states reversed their bans on colored margarine. The last state to repeal the ban on dyes? You guessed it: Wisconsin. America’s Dairyland didn’t allow dyed margarine until 1967. Source: MentalFloss.com

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Lierre Keith on The Vegetarian Myth

August 18th, 2011

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Eat Your Garnish – Parsley May Keep Breast Cancer At Bay

May 10th, 2011

Parsley is usually used as a decorative accent to a scrumptious meal, but don’t set it aside just yet. In a new study, a University of Missouri researcher has found that a compound in parsley and other plant products, including fruits and nuts, can stop certain breast cancer tumor cells from multiplying and growing. The study was published recently in Cancer Prevention Research. In his study, Salman Hyder, the Zalk Endowed Professor in Tumor Angiogenesis and professor of biomedical sciences in the College of Veterinary Medicine and the Dalton Cardiovascular Research Center, exposed rats with a certain type of breast cancer to apigenin, a common compound found in parsley and other plant products. The rats that were exposed to the apigenin developed fewer tumors and experienced significant delays in tumor formation compared to those rats that were not exposed to apigenin. Hyder believes this finding could impact women who are taking certain hormone replacement therapies. “Six to 10 million women in the United States receive hormone replacement therapy (HRT),” Hyder said. “We know that certain synthetic hormones used in HRT accelerate breast tumor development. In our study, we exposed the rats to one of the chemicals used in the most common HRTs received in the United States — a progestin called medroxyprogesterone acetate (MPA) — which also happens to be the same synthetic hormone that accelerates breast tumor development.” When tumor cells develop in the breast in response to MPA, they encourage new blood vessels to form within tumors. The blood vessels then supply needed nutrients for the tumors to grow and multiply. Hyder found that apigenin blocked new blood vessel formation, thereby delaying, and sometimes stopping, the development of the tumors. Hyder also found that the compound reduced the overall number of tumors. However, while apigenin did delay tumor growth, it did not stop the initial formation of cancer cells within the breast. Apigenin is most prevalent in parsley and celery, but can also be found in apples, oranges, nuts and other plant products. However, apigenin is not absorbed efficiently into the bloodstream, so scientists are unsure of how much can or should be ingested. “We don’t have specific dosage for humans yet,” Hyder said. “However, it appears that keeping a minimal level of apigenin in the bloodstream is important to delay the onset of breast cancer that progresses in response to progestins such as MPA. It’s probably a good idea to eat a little parsley and some fruit every day to ensure the minimal amount. However, you can also find this compound in pill supplements in the health food section of many stores. Of course, you should always check with your doctor before making any major changes to your diet or lifestyle.” The next phrase of studies should include human clinical trials to determine the appropriate dosage amount, Hyder said. He believes further study on humans is necessary to address any health and safety issues that might exist. The research team included Benford Mafuvadze, doctoral student in biomedical sciences, Indira Benakanakere, research scientist Dalton Cardiovascular Research Center; Franklin Lopez, research fellow in the Department of Veterinary Pathobiology; Cynthia Besch-Williford, associate professor of veterinary pathobiology, and Mark Ellersieck, research professor of statistics in the College of Arts and Science. Source:

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Take That Low Sodium Diet Advice With A Grain Of Salt

May 4th, 2011

A new study found that low-salt diets increase the risk of death from heart attacks and strokes and do not prevent high blood pressure, but the research’s limitations mean the debate over the effects of salt in the diet is far from over.

In fact, officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention felt so strongly that the study was flawed that they criticized it in an interview, something they normally do not do.

Dr. Peter Briss, a medical director at the centers, said that the study was small; that its subjects were relatively young, with an average age of 40 at the start; and that with few cardiovascular events, it was hard to draw conclusions. And the study, Dr. Briss and others say, flies in the face of a body of evidence indicating that higher sodium consumption can increase the risk of cardiovascular disease.

“At the moment, this study might need to be taken with a grain of salt,” he said.

The study is published in the May 4 issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association. It involved only those without high blood pressure at the start, was observational, considered at best suggestive and not conclusive. It included 3,681 middle-aged Europeans who did not have high blood pressure or cardiovascular disease and followed them for an average of 7.9 years.

The researchers assessed the participants’ sodium consumption at the study’s start and at its conclusion by measuring the amount of sodium excreted in urine over a 24-hour period.  All the sodium that is consumed is excreted in urine within a day, so this method is the most precise way to determine sodium consumption.

The investigators found that the less salt people ate, the more likely they were to die of heart disease — 50 people in the lowest third of salt consumption (2.5 grams of sodium per day) died during the study as compared with 24 in the medium group (3.9 grams of sodium per day) and 10 in the highest salt consumption group (6.0 grams of sodium per day).  And while those eating the most salt had, on average, a slight increase in systolic blood pressure — a 1.71-millimeter increase in pressure for each 2.5-gram increase in sodium per day — they were no more likely to develop hypertension.

“If the goal is to prevent hypertension” with lower sodium consumption, said the lead author, Dr. Jan A. Staessen, a professor of medicine at the University of Leuven, in Belgium, “this study shows it does not work.”

But among the study’s other problems, Dr. Briss said, its subjects who seemed to consume the smallest amount of sodium also provided less urine than those consuming more, an indication that they might not have collected all of their urine in an 24-hour period.

Dr. Frank Sacks of the Harvard School of Public Health agreed and also said the study was flawed.

“It’s a problematic study,” Dr. Sacks said. “We shouldn’t be guiding any kind of public health decisions on it.”

Dr. Michael Alderman, a blood pressure researcher at Albert Einstein College of Medicineand editor of the American Journal of Hypertension, said medical literature on salt and health effects was inconsistent. But, Dr. Alderman said, the new study is not the only one to find adverse effects of low-sodium diets. His own study, with people who had high blood pressure, found that those who ate the least salt were most likely to die.

Dr. Alderman said that he once was an unpaid consultant for the Salt Institute but that he now did no consulting for it or for the food industry and did not receive any support or take any money from industry groups.

Lowering salt consumption, Dr. Alderman said, has consequences beyond blood pressure. It also, for example, increases insulin resistance, which can increase the risk of heart disease.

“Diet is a complicated business,” he said. “There are going to be unintended consequences.”

One problem with the salt debates, Dr. Alderman said, is that all the studies are inadequate. Either they are short-term intervention studies in which people are given huge amounts of salt and then deprived of salt to see effects on blood pressure or they are studies, like this one, that observe populations and ask if those who happen to consume less salt are healthier.

“Observational studies tell you what people will experience if they select a diet,” Dr. Alderman said. “They do not tell you what will happen if you change peoples’ sodium intake.”

What is needed, Dr. Alderman said, is a large study in which people are randomly assigned to follow a low-sodium diet or not and followed for years to see if eating less salt improves health and reduces the death rate from cardiovascular disease.

But that study, others say, will never happen.

“This is one of those really interesting situations,” said Dr. Lawrence Appel, a professor of medicine, epidemiology and international health at Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions. “You can say, ‘O.K., let’s dismiss the observational studies because they have all these problems.’ ” But, he said, despite the virtues of a randomized controlled clinical trial, such a study “will never ever be done.” It would be impossible to keep people on a low-sodium diet for years with so much sodium added to prepared foods.

Dr. Briss adds that it would not be prudent to defer public health actions while researchers wait for results of a clinical trial that might not even be feasible.

Dr. Alderman disagrees.

“The low-salt advocates suggest that all 300 million Americans be subjected to a low-salt diet. But if they can’t get people on a low-salt diet for a clinical trial, what are they talking about?”

He added: “It will cost money, but that’s why we do science. It will also cost money to change the composition of food.”

Source: New York Times

 

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San Francisco To Allow Commercial Farming In Residential Areas Without Permit

April 25th, 2011

The passage of an urban farming amendment in San Francisco has sparked a wave of joy among backyard farmers from across the Bay Area. The San Francisco Board of Supervisors recently voted to amend the city’s zoning code in such a way that now allows backyard growers to freely cultivate produce and sell it without having to purchase a conditional use permit (CUP), which can run upwards of $3,000. And the victory could also help spur many other urban areas to take the same route in allowing urban gardens on residential land.

The San Francisco ruling permits urban farmers with land plots measuring one acre or less to grow produce for commercial purposes, as long as they purchase an urban agriculture permit for $300. While still somewhat costly, the price is only a small fraction of what a CUP would be, and the process of obtaining one involves far less bureaucratic red tape than a CUP does.

Besides simply being able to sell fresh produce, backyard growers will also be able to sell “value-added” items like jellies, herb salts, salsas, and other prepared items. Both for-profit and not-for-profit groups are included as well, and many believe that the new freedom will further expand the scope of community-supported agriculture (CSA) programs that provide regular assortments of fresh produce to local communities.

“Should for-benefit (non-profit) farm projects seek to raise some of their operating funds through sales, including of value-added products, this will now be allowed,” wrote Antonio Roman-Alcala in a recent piece at Civil Eats. “This could also open the door for social justice-minded urban farms to create truly green jobs without requiring so much grant funding.”

Source: Natural News

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Half Of Americans Taking Nutritional Supplements

April 16th, 2011

As more than half of U.S. adults are popping vitamins and supplements, the question remains — has it made Americans healthier?

That depends on whom you ask.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Wednesday that more of half of U.S. adults use dietary supplements — including multivitamins, minerals and herbs.

That rise, from 42% in 1988 to 53% in 2006, has fueled the growth of the supplement industry to a $27 billion behemoth, according to Consumer Reports.

Dietary supplements are not regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in the same way as drugs. The makers do not have to prove safety or effectiveness.

“There’s a false perception that supplements fall under the same regulatory umbrella as prescription drugs,” said Dr. Orly Avitzur, medical adviser for Consumer Reports. “That’s not the case.”

“We really don’t know what’s inside.”

The most popular supplements are multivitamins, used by 39% of U.S. adults in 2006.

Some consumers mistakenly view supplements as a way to make up for a poor diet.

“It’s a Band-Aid approach to think you can eat poorly and just take a vitamin and you’ll be equal to another person who eats well and exercises and takes care of their health and gets regular checkups,” Avitzur said. “There’s no substitute for a healthy lifestyle.”

While some are helpful, supplements can’t entirely replace proper nutrition, said Roberta Anding, an American Dietetic Association spokesperson.

“I will always say the reason to eat fruits and vegetables — it’s not vitamin C, it’s because of the colors, it’s the words you can’t pronounce,” she said, referring to nutrients like lycopene, quercetin or indoles. “That’s the reason you eat fruits and vegetables. To just throw vitamin C at it, it doesn’t do nutrition justice.”

Multivitamins can be an insurance policy if you don’t get enough of specific vitamins, but it can’t replace a healthy diet, she said.

Depending on the supplement, the money on supplements can be better off spent on food,” she said, suggesting wholesome fruits and vegetables that pack vitamins, minerals and nutrients.

Over two decades, researchers have seen increased use of calcium, vitamin D and folic acid.

About 61% of women over the age of 60 take calcium, compared with only 28% in 1988-1994. Also, 56% of women in that age group take vitamin D supplements, compared with only 30% in 1988-1994.

Scientific evidence shows that vitamin D and calcium help to treat bone loss. Folic acid can help pregnant women prevent major birth defects.

Jaime Gahche, main author of the CDC report, and her co-authors analyzed responses from a sample size of 37,596, using National Health and Nutrition Examination surveys. Participants were asked what supplements they had taken in the past 30 days and submitted the product label to National Center for Health Statistics nutritionists.

Gahche said it was unclear from the data whether increased supplement use has made Americans healthier.

“With this data, we couldn’t answer that,” she said. “We can’t make any causal relationships — this is providing the estimates. I don’t think we have any answers whether it’s made us healthier or not.”

Several epidemiological studies showed there was no significant difference between people who take supplements and those who do not, said Anding, a registered dietitian and director of sports nutrition at Texas Children’s Hospital.

Just because it might not make a difference in public health, “it doesn’t mean it’s universally true for everyone,” she said. Supplements could make a big difference for individuals who have certain vitamin deficiencies or food allergies.

Gladys Block, professor Emerita of public health nutrition at University of California Berkeley said, “I really believe that essentially everybody can benefit from a multivitamin.”

Block wrote a research paper comparing a sample size of 1,000. Those who used dietary supplements had lower blood pressure, better plasma levels, and stress status than those who did not.

“They were healthier, in those respects and so, that’s one piece of evidence,” she said. “It doesn’t tell the whole story. I believe there is evidence that people can be healthier as a result of taking vitamin and mineral supplements.”

“It used to be most of the scientific world was against most types of supplement. That has changed over the last 15 years. A lot of people recognize the benefit of multivitamins. There is increasing support in the science, like folate, like calcium.”

Certain dietary supplements such as vitamin D and fish oil have proven benefits, but others like bitter orange and vitamin B5 lack evidence.

Just because you can purchase it at a health store, it doesn’t mean it’s going to make you healthy, said Avitzur, neurologist and medical adviser at Consumer Reports said.

“By no means do I want to paint the industry with the same brush,” she said. “It’s important to look for sources. It’s important to read up about it.”

She advised consulting with doctors first about taking supplements.

“Consumers will hesitate sometimes when a doctor prescribes medications,” she said. “They want to know about side effects, safety, and they ask good questions. When it comes to supplements, you should ask the same questions. Those things apply — talk to your physician.”

Some supplements can interfere with prescription drugs and too much can cause neuropathy and in severe cases, organ damage.

“Too much of a good thing, even supplements that are safe, can be bad for you,” Avitzur said.

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47% Of Supermarket Meat Has Drug Resistant Staph Bacteria

April 16th, 2011

Meat in the U.S. may be widely contaminated with strains of drug-resistant bacteria, researchers reported Friday after testing 136 samples of beef, chicken, pork and turkey purchased at grocery stores.

Nearly half of the samples — 47% — contained strains of Staphylococcus aureus, the type of bacteria that most commonly causes staph infections. Of those bacteria, 52% were resistant to at least three classes of antibiotics, according to a study published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases.

DNA testing suggested the animals were the source of contamination. Environmental health scientist Lance Price, the study’s leader, said the animals most likely harbored these drug-resistant pathogens because antibiotics routinely are fed to livestock to promote growth and prevent disease in crowded pens on large farms.

“These findings really point to serious problems with the way food animals are raised in the U.S. today,” said Price, who directs the Center for Food Microbiology and Environmental Health at the Translational Genomics Research Institute, a nonprofit biomedical research center in Phoenix.

Last summer, the Food and Drug Administration urged the meat industry to cut back on antibiotic use out of concern that the practice breeds drug-resistant bacteria in stockyards and makes antibiotics less effective in humans.

But other scientists said it was premature to conclude that antibiotics in animal feed were to blame. About half of all humans have staph bacteria in their noses or throats, and a food handler with poor hygiene could introduce the pathogen to the food supply, said Beilei Ge, a food scientist at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge.

The meat and poultry samples tested in the study represented 80 brands and were purchased in Los Angeles, Chicago, Fort Lauderdale, Fla., Flagstaff, Ariz., and Washington, D.C.

Scientists incubated the samples for up to 24 hours in a broth that was kept at human body temperature and used genetic tests to determine whether they contained the staph bacteria. Then they treated them with vancomycin, oxacillin, tetracycline and other antibiotics to determine whether they were resistant to the drugs.

The research was funded by the Pew Campaign on Human Health and Industrial Farming, which opposes the routine use of antibiotics in animal feed.

About 11,000 people die every year from S. aureus infections, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and more than half of those deaths are from the hospital “superbug” methicillin-resistant S. aureus, or MRSA.

The direct risk that consumers may acquire a staph infection from meat can be reduced by cooking meat thoroughly and washing all foods and surfaces that come into contact with raw meat, whether or not it is resistant to antibiotics.

However, Caroline DeWaal, director of food safety at the Center for Science in the Public Interest in Washington, D.C., said the study results suggest that consumers might benefit by wearing gloves when they handle raw meat. “It’s making us rethink our advice to the public,” she said.

The American Meat Institute, which represents producers, said Friday that the country’s meat and poultry supply was safe. And data from the CDC show that cases of food-borne illness in the U.S. have declined 20% in the last decade.

William Marler, a leading food safety attorney, said it was helpful to test meat samples available in stores because the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service focused its testing on meat production facilities.

“It’s good to see more people doing retail testing because it shows us that our meat is far less sanitary than most consumers would think,” he said.

But the bigger threat to public health is that widespread antibiotic use in livestock could make the drugs increasingly ineffective in humans, Price said.

The American Medical Assn., the World Health Organization and other medical groups have warned that the misuse of antibiotics in food animal production may be creating a serious problem for human health by fostering development of drug-resistant bacteria.

Studies in Canada and Denmark show that taking antibiotics out of animal feed makes antibiotic-resistant bacteria less prevalent in both animals and people with no ill effects for animals or ranchers, Price said.

“Our lifesaving medications are being used as tools to make animals grow faster,” Price said. “We must do everything we can to protect these antibiotics that protect our health.”

Source: Los Angeles Times

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