Can't BEET it!

Ha ha ha. Sorry for the pun, I just couldn't help myself. I'll try not to go too nuts with this story (because that would be BEET-ing a dead horse!)

Apparently, beet juice is kind of a big deal. They've been looking into it over at Wake Forest University, and it has some pretty beneficial health effects. It's all about the nitrates, which I thought were supposed to be harmful compounds found in processed meat like hot dogs, but then I'm not a university biologist so my knowledge is crap.

The body turns nitrates into nitrites, and nitrites improve blood flow. The Wake Forest researchers divided up their test subjects into a group that ate a lot of nitrates, provided by beet juice, and a group that didn't. Then they switched diets halfway through for the participants to make sure that it really was the food that was having the effect. And in all cases, the research supported the theory that increased nitrate consumption leads to improved blood flow.

From there, they are saying that this improves brain activity, and think it's going to be helpful for older adults.

What I want to know is how nasty it was to have to drink 16 ounces of straight beet juice. That's a full pint glass, and when dealing with glasses of that size, I'd rather have the beer. Does beer help increase the blood flow to the brain? If they're interested in studying that, I want to volunteer to be one of the test subjects!

But what if you're allergic to mice?

Remember a few years back when there was a news story about a lethal "peanut butter kiss"? A girl had died, and the rumor that was circulating was that her boyfriend had just eaten a peanut butter sandwich and kissed her, and she was so fatally allergic to peanuts that she had a reaction and died. It turned out to be a load of crap--the coroner released an official report after her autopsy stating that she did not have an allergic reaction to kissing her boyfriend--but the urban legend was just too juicy for people to let go. I still hear coworkers talking about it.

I haven't seen anyone die from a food allergy, but I have seen some pretty bad reactions. Allergies to things like wheat, peanuts, and milk can be serious business. I can only imagine how heartbreaking it must be for allergy sufferers since those items end up in so many of the food products available in stores and items on restaurant menus these days.

Given all that, I think it's kind of a big deal that Johns Hopkins prevented mice from having fatal allergic reactions. I think that's good news. Granted, it usually takes a long time for something to get from the "tested in mice" stage to the "making life better for everyone" stage, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Profits or Predators Don't Matter, We're All Doomed

I don't think this study will change much in the long run, but it turns out that we might not properly understand what drives the commercial fishing industry. The currently accepted theory is that fishermen use a "top down" approach, starting with predators at the top of the food chain (notably tuna and halibut). Once fishing reduces their population and catches dwindle, fishermen move further down the food chain pulling in the fish those predators used to eat until those numbers dwindle, and so on.

According to the University of Washington, it turns out that our motivations may be more economic than evolutionary. Commercial fisheries are (understandably) motivated to catch whatever fish is the most profitable. This means that governments can influence conservation efforts and maintain sustainable levels of fishing by setting price controls on seafood.

Will it work, though? I'm pessimistic. Governments are going to be motivated by what is politically popular, and I don't think it would be possible to arrange for the kind of national cooperation required to have a lasting effect on ocean populations. We should all cultivate a taste for jellyfish, since they're the only thing that has managed to thrive thanks to our efforts.

Your Love of Crabs Will Kill Us All

Congratulations, University of Alabama at Birmingham. Your research into blue crabs is going to poison the environment and kill us all. Sorry, what I meant to say was that UAB has made an exciting new discovery about a potential food source, and I'm sure that nothing could possibly go wrong!

People eat blue crabs. People only eat blue crabs when they're molting. Molting season happens only the spring and early summer. UAB scientists want to make blue crabs molt on demand so that they can be eaten year round.

I see their point. You can start setting up blue crab operations all along the coast and it will create jobs and make more food available. But is it really a good idea to force those kinds of changes? Especially when you consider that factory farms raising salmon are little more than floating ocean pens; how do you keep this chemical you're giving to the blue crabs from getting into the ocean at large? And then what happens once it starts affecting organisms in the wild?

Oh, I'm sure it'll be nothing to worry about.

Peeing In Your Food

I suppose it's not news that no one in food service washes their hands after using the bathroom. But Kansas State wanted to find out why. Surprise! It's because they're lazy.

It's not just bathroom handwashing. It's not cleaning their work surfaces, and not paying attention to how long foods have been sitting out, which foods need to be refrigerated, and how hot food needs to get in order to kill germs. Restaurant workers don't know, and don't care. Luckily, they were willing to complete surveys that confirmed it.

Even after four hours of training, the food service workers participating in the survey still didn't follow proper procedures for kitchen hygeine, but they stopped citing ignorance and started blaming the managers for not monitoring them. I guess they think that if they're sloppy enough, they'll get their own Food Network TV Show.

Are Potatoes the New Brain Food?

They may not make you smart, but they will keep you from getting stupid... er. Your cognitive skills like attention, long- and short-term memory, spatial memory, and visual attention will all take a hit if you eliminate carbohydrates from your diet. That means that the bag of potato chips I ate this afternoon was brain food. The french toast I like to have on weekends? Absolutely vital for my spatial memory. (The gallons of syrup? Not so much.)

I'm not making it up. A Tufts University study tracked volunteers on low carbohydrate diets, and a separate set of subjects on balanced, low-calorie diets. The low carbohydrate test subjects did worse on memory-based tests. Luckily, it's not a permanent effect, and they returned back to normal as soon as carbohydrates were reintroduced.

The study only involved 19 test subjects, so it's not as though there's a massive body of data available. Still, I'm going to load up on twinkies, mashed potatoes, liquor and pie so that I'm ahead of the curve. I've got to keep my edge, after all!

Fat Chicks Gone Wild

Obese women just can't control themselves. That's what they're claiming at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. According to their studies, obese women have "a more feeble impulse control."

It's back to delay discounting. UAB thinks that obese women aren't able to do it as effectively. I guess you could make an argument that the two are linked. After all, the ability to put off present (food) rewards in favor of long term (health) benefits would explain the weight gain. Still, I love eating, hate exercising, and don't think about the future consequences of my current meals, but I wouldn't say that I have poor impulse control.

Then again, I haven't been subjected to a medical study like UAB's. They determined how effectively the participants could delay their rewards by offering them cash now or more cash later. I would totally participate in medical studies for cash, no matter how quickly they paid me.

Cybernetic Tiger Lillies

Are they still cyborgs if they're part machine, part plant? I ask because that's going to be the wave of the future, if our discarded nanotechnology ends up in plants. Now we not only have to worry about robot insurrection, but rhododendron ascension as well.

The University of Delaware has proven that plants can absorb nanoparticles into their tissues. With a little work, they found that pumpkin seeds were able to absorb iron oxide nanoparticles. Naturally, it was a soil physicist who did the study.

The alarm they're raising is that if the nanoparticles can get into plants, then other animals that eat those plants will be passing the particles along the food chain. That's not good news, but neither is the thought of these plants getting hold of advanced nanotechnolgy and using it to become superplants. Then we're screwed.

Fight Fat with Text Messaging

Oh, if only sending texts to people burned calories. That's what I thought when I saw the headline that text messaging helps keep kids slim, but UNC-Chapel Hill is just a big tease.

They're not telling us that you can keep your kids trim and healthy by making them send text messages to each other, they're encouraging people to keep their kids slim with digital nagging. It's weight watchers for tech geeks.

Three groups of test subjects (families of parents and children) were given instructions for healthy living and then asked about the amount they walked, the number of sweetened drinks they drank in a day, and the amount of time they spent in front of a (TV or computer) screen over the course of the study.

The group that reported their results via cell phone text message stayed at it the longest, with only 28% dropping out. I thought it was funny that while 50% of the non-reporting group dropped out, a massive 61% of the group that was supposed to write down their results in a diary said "Screw this, I've got better things to do with my time."

The saddest part was the automated messages that were sent back to the text messaging group whenever they reported their results. I see the next big internet startup being programs that generate text messages of encouragement to you while you're on a diet. "Good job, CITIZEN, you did great work REDUCING YOUR CALORIC INTAKE BY -2%."

Are You Gonna Eat That?

Because those pigs totally will, if you won't. Or those chickens, or those cows over there, or maybe some dogs. It turns out that one-third of the world's ocean fish catch is just fed to animals.

Pig feed, chicken feed, even farm-raised fish are being fed ground up "bait fish" or forage fish such as anchovies, sardines, and menhade (a species I had not heard of until reading the report). All told, it's 31.5 million tons of fish that could be either fed to hungry people or more importantly kept in the goddamn ecosystem to keep our ocean stocks from collapsing, but I guess that those factory farms needed some kind of substitute now that the threat of mad cow disease has kept them from grinding up cows to feed to other cows.

The whole thing makes me equal parts angry and scared.

If It LOOKS Better, It Must TASTE Better

So say children everywhere. Were you embarrassed to eat the generic, store brand cereal? The stuff that came in the sacks instead of the boxes? With the almost-but-not-quite-the-same cartoon mascots? I know it made me feel weird.

It's part of a deliberate marketing strategy (of course). And it's working. The American Public Health Association has found that children who are offered cereal with well-recognized cartoon mascots on the box (Tony the Tiger, Snap, Crackle & Pop, Sugar Bear, etc.) found that it tasted better than the exact same cereal from a box without the character.

There's another piece of the research that's a little more heartening. Children thought that a cereal with a healthy-sounding name tasted better than the same cereal with a less-healthy name. So, all we have to do is trust that marketers will be truthful in choosing cereal names that reflect the nutritional value of their product. What could go wrong with that?

Thankful for Excuses to Sell Things

It's Thanksgiving day, and that's one of my favorite holidays. I think that makes it a great day to check one of my favorite websites, the Association for Dressings and Sauces website. They've got a press release for every month of the year (although they could stand to update a few of the ones that are 2+ years old).

The Association has a press release about the holidays that's for the month of December, but I think a lot of their tips would work for Thanksgiving. And by "tips" I mean "excuses to push dressings and sauces." What else would you expect from a trade organization?

Some of it's kind of inventive. For example, they recommend having bowls of fruit as a substitute for candy or chocolates. Then they recommend that you serve them with some sort of fruit dip. They suggest basting your turkey with a tangy or smoky sauce from the grocery store. And not to neglect their dressing contingent, they recommend that you make the leftover turkey into a salad later--so you can top it with salad dressing.

Toothless Chicks Are God's Plan

Or they're at least a noble tradition stretching back through the millennia. That's what the University of Oregon found out after researching the issue extensively. And it's about time.

It's actually quite the subject of academic debate. The prevailing thought was that as societies shifted from hunter/gatherers to farming-based, the change in their diet led to an increase in cavities. Anthropologist John R. Lukacs agrees that women experienced an increasing number of cavities as a result of the societal shift, but not due to diet. Lukacs argues that the societal shift away from hunting and gathering led to increased sedentism and fertility. It was the increase in fertility that led to increased cavities more than anything else.

Did you know that women get more cavities than men? It was news to me, but I'm not really up on my orthodontic trivia. The idea that pregnancy leads to poor dental health was also a surprise, but not something I had spent a lot of time worrying about.

How Echolocation Brings You Better Coffee

It's all about the bats. First, there are ongoing studies in Mexico to determine how to raise coffee without pesticides. The researchers used to think that birds played a crucial role in keeping coffee-eating insects away from crops, but it turns out that a much larger share of the responsibility goes to bats.

They studied four groups of coffee plants. The control group of plants, uncovered day and night, was protected from insects by both bats and birds. A second group of plants was only covered during the day, protected by the bats at night, and a third group was covered at night, protected only by the birds during the day. The final group of plants was covered day and night, and was most severely attacked by pests.

It turns out that plants that did not have the benefit of the bats' protection had 84% more assorted pests than the coffee plants in their care. That's when they started paying more attention to how the bats were protecting the plants. Think spiders. Actually, think sandworms of the sky.

You may be familiar with the way you can see bats hunting for insects, zipping through the air after mosquitos and other flying pests like aerial dogfighters from World War I. Bats can eat half their body weight in just one night that way. However, the researchers watching the coffee plants learned about a new way for the bats to hunt.

The bats by the coffee plants would hide in the trees, and use their sonar to listen for insects going after the plants. Like Frank Herbert's sandworms, sensitive to the shifting of desert sands, the bats can use their acute hearing to pick up the sounds of insects moving, eating, or chirping. Then they strike. It's actually kind of awesome.

Fat Kids Respond Well to Help

Sometimes, I read these studies and wonder what they thought was going to hapen. I mean, super job, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, you've established that obese children can lose weight if they participate in a behavioral management programs. Why don't you commission a study to find out if patients denied medical care will get sicker and die?

Yes, we need more education on eating healthy in the United States, at all levels, but did we really need scientific studies to tell us that? And haven't they already studied it?

I guess that this is different because it comes from an official government agency.

Hammer Makes More Problems Like Nails

Corn. It's important for biofuel right now. We're also having trouble keeping the supply up with its demand now that it's used in food, fuel, industrial applications, etc.

Meanwhile, Miscanthus X Giganteus is a giant grass that specializes in growing for a longer period of time in colder climates than corn.

Enter the scientists, who think that they've figured out what makes this grass perform so well. Their solution to the biofuel problem? Turning the grass into biofuel would be too pedestrian (almost as crazy as trying to solve the fuel problem by using less gas). What they want to do is take genes from the grass that develop a special protein for it to thrive in the cold, and transplant them into some kind of frankencorn that's genetically engineered to survive in those conditions.

Way to go, science.

The Food Network Is Trying to Kill You

Texas Tech studied the Food Network's top chefs, including Rachel Ray, Emeril, and Sandra Lee. They found 460 "poor food handling incidents" and only 118 positive food handling examples.

We're talking about food shows where chefs get their food from unsafe sources, don't use thermometers, use food from the floor (yes, the ten-second rule is scientifically sound, but we don't need to make it the foundation of our cooking techniques), and not refrigerating perishable food, just to name a few. I know that they edit some things out to make for exciting television (who wants to watch two hours of some chef washing dishes the whole time?), but actually showing someone mixing their ready-to-eat foods with their raw food is a bad idea.

It's a shame, because when it comes to food safety, people need more visual examples. All right, accusing the food network of actually trying to kill you is a little harsh, but they're certainly playing fast and loose with the concern for their audience's health.

I guess that they could use it to their advantage, though. Imagine that episode of Iron Chef?

"Today's secret ingredient is... LISTERIA!"