Latest Health Warning

Have y'all seen this yet? French fries and potato chips, also certain kinds of breakfast cereal and bread fried or baked at high temps can cause cancer! Yep. UN and USFDA and WHO, among other national government-sponsored food safety departments (German, Sweden, among others) had a meeting about it. They refused to issue guidelines about cooking/consumption levels, but say it "needs further study".

So now we're back to our "guess what else is bad for you?" generation?

OH well, I am allergic to potatoes anyway; but maybe bye-bye Mickey-D's and Wendys. Not.

Oh, by the way, one of the most potent carcinogens in the world? Oxygen. Regular kind that we need to breathe. Bet you never heard that one, but proven over and over.

Isn't this maddening? We need to know, but it is so depressing to read over and over that living itself can cause cancer. I recently read that it is futile to worry about the foods that are said to fight free radicals, as it only counts in the diets of adolescents. So, before you can have time to learn about the importance of a certain food, it's too late? I love potatoes, and will probably continue to eat them because they provide a lot of the B vitamins. I love lots of foods that were said to be good for us, and have always eaten the very things recently thought to be beneficial and offer protection. Was my adolescence wasted? Are my good eating habits all for naught? Sometimes I feel like forgetting about all of it. With that I think I shall brew a strong cup of coffee and enjoy some marmalade and butter on toasted English sourdough muffin.

It's a wonder the human race has survived for so long considering practically everything we do is bad for our health.

All well they'll have to come up with something better to put me off living these days.

A North European country's study came up with 'gardening is addictive'. Yes, I'm a self confessed addict but there are worse things to be addicted to, in my book gardening is low on my list of things to avoid unless it sounds too much like hard work ;)

Forgot to add;

Send me all the potatoes that aren't going to be eaten, I love them anyway you can make them!

This message was edited Saturday, Jun 29th 7:28 PM

Also, web surfing is addictive. And surfing garden sites is the most addictive of all.

Make that two Aimée, I'll be right along.

It's the same here in Germany. Every other day in the newspapers there is a report about something new which causes either cancer, heart attack, liver problems, kidney failure, or some other terminal illness. Why eat anything at all??
I wonder sometimes how my dear old Gran made it to 89, and the Queen Mum to 101. My Gran neither smoked nor drank in her life, but she did like a really good fry-up. The Queen Mum knocked a bottle of gin down her throat every DAY, and was still going strong until Princess Margaret died.
If you ask me, it's a load of codswollop.

Munching & drinking what I will.

Wintermoor

You saying that Wintermoor reminded me of my little Nan, she drank 3 pints of Butlers mild (in half pint glasses of course) every night until she was in her early 80's, smoked and took snuff. She made it to 91 with barely 4 weeks illness in at least 30 years. My big Nan swore she (little Nan) was so healthy because she was well and truely pickled, the irony is that she died at 63 and lead a super healthy lifestyle in comparison.

It's almost as if the scientists are treating death like an illness, something that can be cured. I'm all for healthy living but these reports do seem to go too far sometimes.

What's the point of living if we spend our whole lives trying to avoid dying? Seems pointless.

LOL Lupine, I've spent a lot of time avoiding death ... it's all part of living, but I know what you mean :)

Yeah, a lot gets lost in the translations. BTW, what are "rooks"?

Those chessmen which look like castles ;-)

Sorry couldn't resist it

*slapping my own hand*

Wintermoor

Rooks, to make it easy, are big black crow like birds. There are rooks in the Tower of London whose wings are clipped, as it was said that if they should leave the tower the Crown will fall, or something to that effect.

Royally

Wintermoor

I think processed foods are a big culprit, the ones that are processed to the point that they almost cease being the original natural food they were made from. I believe the damage they do is only surpassed by worry and stress. So I avoid worry and stress like the plague! Hence, I've given up worrying about what can kill me if I eat it and just try my best to avoid processed foods.

I also try to eat a wide variety of things so I get vitamins and minerals from them all. And I try very hard to not cook anything that comes from a box. Like boxed macaroni and cheese with that powdered cheese. I make it myself when we get a taste for it. That's not often ~ I prefer asparagus with butter! Mmmm-mmm! It's hard when you have a DH as picky as mine, but I'm softening him up!

Never heard that legend, but surely wouldn't want to take the chance.

Empirically,
Aimée

I don't know how the "Rooks" posts landed here, they were in Baa's Musical thread before.

Stranger than fiction

Wintermoor

Wintermoor, I think LupineLover read it there, then remembered it when she saw Baa here and so she asked here. Perhaps your answer needs to be posted in the other thread, too, just for the enlightenment of others who wondered but didn't ask. And my post about the legend fell below Wingnut's post but was meant to comment on your tower story.

Yeah, that's probably right Aimée,
I've noticed how tired I am after my Hamburg Round-Up last night ;-)

Snoozy

Wintermoor

What is a Hamburg Round-Up? Ya'll partied and didn't invite us?

I follow y'all! Wintermoor, I watch a show on PBS called "Crown and Country" and the blackbirds and their legend were mentioned. I love those sort of things!

OOPS!!

pressed the wrong button!!

This message was edited Sunday, Jun 30th 5:08 AM

Aimée,
follow the link.http://davesgarden.com/showthread/284359.html

Wingnut,
these legends are plentiful in the UK, there are legends for just about everything pertaining to the crown.
Very interesting it is too.

Wintermoor

Isn't it just?! I love that sort of thing! I feel drawn to any information about the crown and that country. How does that saying go about being homesick for a place you've never been? Applies here. Maybe I was there in another life...

John Denver said something about "going home to a place I've never been".

Several years ago, there were a lot of health warnings from Canadian tests on many things that caused cancer in rats. One Canadian commentator did an editorial that said, what was needed was not for the public to give up all these things that had been teste, but for the Canadian researchers to find a stronger strain of rats!

Boy this one really went round and round! You are right; I did see the reference to rooks in the other thread; since there was the misunderstanding about words in this one, I posted the query here as part of that. Just curious, Winter, what button did you press?

Another thing I was curious about: the "Franken foods" that y'all in Europe have managed to get eliminated or at least severely regulated. They are widespread here in US; but what do vegetarians think about eating potatoes and tomatoes that have the cow gene inserted? Is it still a potato (i.e. legal) or are potatoes now meat (i.e. forbidden?) I am sure there are other instances, but this one was the most widely reported.

Our family's main trouble is that I have very many food allergies, so I can eat almost no pre-processed food; my father has many also, but different from mine. My mother doesn't have allergies, but strong preferences, and neither my father nor I like the things she does (broiled fish, winter and steamed root vegetables (rutabaga, winter squash, etc).

Yes, sorry perhaps I should have used crows as a reference to my harmonics.

Ravens are the birds at the Tower, curious really because they are considered an ill omen normally. Someone told me they fed them blood soaked food and they get to peck all the humans they want to without the normal reprisals ... lucky birdies, living in comfort!

GM foods were such a huge topic here a few years ago, we have food scares here at least twice a year as it is! I saw a programme last week on the subject which was definitely biased towards the GM foods. The governments in the UK are very keen on the idea but for once they had to bow to public opinion. This programme was basically saying how stupid the Europeans are for not taking up the opportunity and said the Americans laughed at us for it. I doubt many hold that opinion, all just media bumfph.

Lupine,
I meant I posted twice, edited it to say OOps etc.

The Franken(stein) Foods is causing a lot of concern in Europe at the moment. The German Govt. under Chancellor Schroeder, for example, has put a stop to any further distribution, imports, and sales of these articles until there has been more research done by, not only the companies concerned, but by the German government, and also independent European governmental studies, which is basically the death knell for these products here, until someone can prove that they are 100% safe.

*worried*

Wintermoor

US media try to tell us they are OK and will eliminate world-wide famines, all the same baloney. Few real people over here buy that. But our gov't will not bow on public opinion on this issue; refuse to label the foods because they insist all testing has proven them safe. Could be a reason why more people are buying certified organics now; no GM foods allowed in organic food.

No one over here that I have ever heard of (except media trying to tell us otherwise) that Europeans are fools for disallowing this; most of us envy the way your gov'ts have listened.