The friend's meals usually look like grass, sawdust or livestock feed. She would somewhat have a rattlesnake than a preservative or component in her cupboard, and she considers people who eat steak, french fries and hot-fudge sundaes only somewhat less loathsome than folletín killers. Her house overflows with obscure herbs and teas, and in the girl mason jars something is forever in some phase of sprouting. She is a Joan of Arch of the organic, a health-food zealot. I appreciate her purity, and yet...
I can't help pondering of the scene in Sleeper when Woody Allen wakes up in the next century to find that scientists have learned the only healthful food is a hot-fudge sundae. Sometimes, I admit, We hope something like this will happen and my buddy will get her comeuppance - if only because then I won't feel so guilty about my Fritos.
So I was secretly relieved to learn that the partnership
dźwigi samochodowe between food and longevity is not as clear-cut as my pal imagines. A couple of decades ago, Bruce Ames, professor of chemistry and molecular biology at the University of California at Berkely, started wondering about the long set of artificial chemicals in a carrier of potato chips. Did these things cause cancer? At the time, tests for carcinogenicity were long and expensive, involving hundreds of laboratory rats and years of observation.
From the early on '70s, Ames developed a faster and cheaper test: He'd toss a substance into a test tube of bacteria and see whether it caused changement. If it did, the substance was possibly carcinogenic. Their now-famous Ames Test cautioned of the perils of thousands of man-made chemicals in such products as food, hair dyes and the flame retardant Collections. Sometimes, the suspect chemicals were banned.
A ten years later, Ames had cause to reconsider his viewpoint. When he and other scientists commenced testing a host of Mother Nature's products - including plums, apples, Brussels sprouts, radishes, raspberries, grapefruit juice, honeydew melon, celery, parsley, powdered cocoa, carrots, red wine, rhubarb, beets, fava beans, pineapples and black pepper - they found that these things, too, looked ominously carcinogenic. Now Ames, no longer the darling of environmentalists, estimates that 99. 99 percent of the pesticides in our diets are derived from natural sources. Because fifty percent of both natural and synthetic chemicals are carcinogenic, we can't disregard the danger natural chemicals in our food present.
Healthy Suspects
The length of time15411 can be spent worrying? Will every visit to the supermarket require a conference of experts waving sheaves of citations? After a while, everything appears to be bad for you, including what was previously good for you, like eggs and
dźwigi samochodowe meats - and now veggies. To add to the confusion, while exerts like Ames are noticing that everything natural isn't necessarily benevolent, others are obtaining unexpected virtues in some "junk" foods.
Consider a few "good" foods that might be bad:
Natural Food
My friend's typical holier-than-thou salad is full of vegetables from the organic and natural food mart, which guarantees they are unmarked by any agricultural method manufactured by since Neolithic times. No pesticides, for sure. "Organic food may be more dangerous than Safeway food, " says Ames. "When plants get anxious [e. g., by attacks of critters] they make more of the natural pesticides. inch These, he admits that, may be more toxic than any DDT residues that might creep into our diets. Moreover, the salad contains:
Tulsi. This salad dressing component contains estragole, another natural pesticide. The salad also contains...
Raw Mushrooms. They may organic, of course - and "full of carcinogenic, " including natural insect sprays called hydrazines, Ames states. Drinking apple juice with Alar is about one fiftieth as hazardous to health as eating one mushroom. Right now her greens is looking quite positivelly dangerous, considering the...
Mold. Read that right, the mold on organic and natural nuts, cheese wedges and apple slices harbors a variety of carcinogens, according to Ames's studies. Last, but not least, behold the very symbol of small-planet, whole-earth eating...
Alfalfa sprouts. The friend tosses these liberally into every salad and sandwich, little suspecting they contain natural toxins that Ames says cause the illness lupus in monkeys. Naturally , the monkey's diets were 40 percent alfalfa sprouts, more than any individual health nut could possibly eat, but let us all stop worshipping sprouts.
Additional staples of a desired regimen are also worrisome:
Cabbage and broccoli. These types of contain substances that, in the stomach, transform into a natural chemical related to dioxin, the deadly herbicide in Agent Orange, in accordance with Ames. On the other hand, broccoli, like many vegetables, also includes anticarcinogens that may or might not exactly cancel out the carcinogens.
Comfrey tea. Our god knows, no caffeine would ever touch my friend's lips. She gets all her highs (as well as her tranquility) from herbal teas. Unfortunately, symphytum asperum tea contains a carcinogenic natural pesticide, symphytine, based on Ames.
Corn, nuts, grain, fruit, bread, peanut rechausser and apple juice. Almost all contain potentially carcinogenic molds, Ames says.
Margarine. Considering that the not so good news broke about saturated fats and heart disease, no health fanatic would dream of sloshing butter on her seven-grain toast. Now it seems polyunsaturated fats boost the oxidation process rate of cells and therefore create more "free radicals, " those unstable, removed down molecules many experts believe blur your DNA, hasten aging and cause cancer.
