Interesting items from my inbox and elsewhere …
The Many Uses For Hogs
I’m a big fan of the hog (when they’re not smacking me around in a chute, that is), but I had no idea they’re this useful:
When we tuck into a bacon sandwich, few of us wonder what has happened to the other parts of the pig whose life has been sacrificed so we can enjoy a juicy breakfast.
But one inquisitive writer set out to trace where all the body parts of one porker ended up.
Christein Meindertsma, 29, said: ‘Like most people, I had little idea of what happens to a pig after it leaves the abattoir so I decided to try to find out. I approached a pig farmer friend who agreed let me follow one of his animals.’
Identified by its yellow ear tag number, 05049, her pig trail ended with her identifying an incredible 185 different uses to which it was put – from the manufacture of sweets and shampoo, to bread, body lotion, beer and bullets.
Virtually nothing in a pig goes to waste. The snout from Pig 05049 became a deep-fried dog snack, while pig ears are sometimes used for chemical weapon testing due to their similarity to human tissue.
Tattoo artists even buy sections of pig skin to practise their craft on due to its similarity to human skin, while it is occasionally used with burns patients for the same reason.
I’m starting to feel a bit chagrined that all we got from our hogs was 500 pounds of meat. I could have been practicing to become a tattoo artist while covering myself with body lotion, drinking a beer, and firing some bullets at a loaf of bread.
Bacon Laser?
We may need add another use for hogs to the list:
A team of Harvard scientists has paved the way for a deadly laser pig weapon by demonstrating that, with a little encouragement, pig fat cells can be made to lase.
According to MIT Technology Review, Seok Hyun Yun and Matjaž Humar stimulated spheres of fat inside porcine cells with an optical fibre, causing them to emit laser light.
And here I thought my belly was glowing because I’m happy.
Handily, pig cells contain “nearly perfectly spherical” fat balls, which are conducive to lasing by resonance when supplied with a suitable light source. The team has also cheated the effect by injecting oil droplets into other cells.
Seok Hyun Yun, lead author of the report which appears in Nature Photonics, reckons an ultimate use of his work might be to deploy “intracellular microlasers as research tools, sensors, or perhaps as part of a drug treatment”.
Drug treatment, my foot. Let’s put all the research dollars into that deadly laser pig weapon. Imagine if we have troops overseas in some future war:
“Achmed, what’s that smell coming from the American lines? Is it …?”
“Yes! I believe it’s BACON! Run! Run before they turn the pig-laser on us!”
And if would-be intruders are scared away from my house by the aroma of saugage, that’s fine by me.
Eggs With My Pig Laser, Please
In my Science For Smart People speech, I mentioned that when some researchers find a correlation in an observational study, they assume they’re looking at cause and effect. I gave the example of a meta-analysis which prompted the lead researcher to announce to the media, “The studies showed a significant increase of new onset diabetes with regular egg consumption.”
Sure sounds like cause and effect, doesn’t it? Based on other interviews, that’s indeed what the researcher believes. But of course, if eggs actually caused diabetes, we wouldn’t see observational studies like this one:
Men who ate more than five eggs a week had a lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes than men who ate about one a week only, according to researchers in Finland.
In a study with an average follow-up of almost 20 years with 2,332 participants, researchers noticed that those in the highest quartile for egg intake had a lower risk of developing diabetes than those in the lowest quartile when cholesterol and other factors were controlled for.
Yunsheng Ma, MD, an associate professor of medicine at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, said in an email to MedPage Today that the study “provides welcome news to support the 2015 dietary guidelines, which are expected to drop the limit of egg consumption for blood cholesterol concerns.”
Ma said that he was aware of six studies that examined egg consumption and diabetes. One showed an increased risk, he said, and the other five showed no association. “So these results are not in line with other findings,” wrote Ma.
So here’s the official score in Observational Study Stadium: one study shows a higher risk of diabetes with higher egg consumption, one shows a lower risk, and five show no association at all. That means there’s no cause-and-effect relationship, period. Any good science teacher could tell you that.
Speaking of which …
A Science Teacher’s Opinion of Super Size Me
Several people besides me have demonstrated they could lose weight while eating nothing but fast food. The latest happens to be a science teacher:
Iowa high school science teacher John Cisna weighed 280 pounds and wore a size 51 pants.
Then he started eating at McDonalds. Every meal. Every day. For 180 days.
By the end of his experiment, Cisna was down to a relatively svelte 220 and could slip into a size 36.
Unlike me, Cisna didn’t embrace a high-fat diet:
Cisna left it up to his students to plan his daily menus, with the stipulation that he could not eat more than 2,000 calories a day and had to stay within the FDA’s recommended daily allowances for fat, sugar, protein, carbohydrates and other nutrients.
I much prefer my “@#$% the government recommendations” diet. But I definitely enjoyed Cisna’s comments about Super Size Me:
“As a science teacher, I would never show ‘Super Size Me’ because when I watched that, I never saw the educational value in that,” Cisna said. “I mean, a guy eats uncontrollable amounts of food, stops exercising, and the whole world is surprised he puts on weight?’
“What I’m not proud about is probably 70 to 80 percent of my colleagues across the United States still show ‘Super Size Me’ in their health class or their biology class. I don’t get it.”
I get it. They like the anti-McDonald’s message, so they toss critical thinking out the window … assuming they had any critical-thinking skills to toss.
It’s 2015 … So Let’s See How the ‘90s Viewed the ‘60s
I never watched the TV show Quantum Leap, but a reader sent me a link to this YouTube clip. It’s part of an episode in which the main character visits his parents in 1969. Skip ahead to the 12-minute mark:
The episode aired in 1990. That’s right about when arterycloggingsaturatedfat! hysteria was in full swing. The main character goes back in time and is horrified by all the fat and cholesterol his father is eating. Now we can go back in time and be horrified by the fact that the main character is horrified.
Junior was right about one thing, though: Dear Old Dad needs to stop smoking.
If I could go back in time, I wouldn’t tell my dad to stop eating eggs and butter. I’d tell him to give up sugar and stop taking those @#$%ing statins. His 81st birthday would have been tomorrow, and man, I wish I could call him up, rib him about getting old, then wait for one of his witty comebacks.
It’s 2015 … So Everything Good Must Be Candy
This isn’t from a news item. It’s something I’ve noticed in a handful of TV commercials: vitamins and even fiber tablets now come in the form of gummies– for adults. I didn’t find a commercial online, but I did find this:
So apparently some people won’t take vitamins unless they taste like candy. If that’s not a sad comment on our dietary habits, I don’t know what is.
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I dont always take vitamins..but when I do, it’s at a bar..
http://care.diabetesjournals.org/content/32/2/295.full
Egg Consumption and Risk of Type 2 Diabetes in Men and Women
In this large prospective study, we have demonstrated that daily consumption of at least one egg is associated with an increased risk of type 2 diabetes in both men and women, independently of traditional risk factors for type 2 diabetes. Furthermore, the observed association between egg consumption and incident type 2 diabetes was not modified by prevalent hypercholesterolemia in either sex.
In conclusion, our data are consistent with possible detrimental effects of daily consumption of eggs on the risk of type 2 diabetes in both men and women. Because the median egg consumption in this population (one egg per week for men and women) fell within a range not associated with an increased risk of type 2 diabetes, dietary advice to reduce egg consumption may target individuals who consume one or more eggs per day if these findings are confirmed in other studies. Given the societal burden of type 2 diabetes, confirmation of these findings in other populations and exploration of possible underlying biological mechanisms are warranted.
One of the many lousy observational studies drawn from the same pools of data.
I dont always take vitamins..but when I do, it’s at a bar..
http://care.diabetesjournals.org/content/32/2/295.full
Egg Consumption and Risk of Type 2 Diabetes in Men and Women
In this large prospective study, we have demonstrated that daily consumption of at least one egg is associated with an increased risk of type 2 diabetes in both men and women, independently of traditional risk factors for type 2 diabetes. Furthermore, the observed association between egg consumption and incident type 2 diabetes was not modified by prevalent hypercholesterolemia in either sex.
In conclusion, our data are consistent with possible detrimental effects of daily consumption of eggs on the risk of type 2 diabetes in both men and women. Because the median egg consumption in this population (one egg per week for men and women) fell within a range not associated with an increased risk of type 2 diabetes, dietary advice to reduce egg consumption may target individuals who consume one or more eggs per day if these findings are confirmed in other studies. Given the societal burden of type 2 diabetes, confirmation of these findings in other populations and exploration of possible underlying biological mechanisms are warranted.
One of the many lousy observational studies drawn from the same pools of data.
Just a quick clarification from someone who works at a burn care device mfg. plant. Pig skin is only used for training purposes for surgeons, similar to the tattoo artists. It is not used on patients.
Dear ole dad should have stopped eating trans fats and industrial seed oils. Turns out that cancer rates went up amongst smokers when USDA
diet recommended eating those industrial seed oils. Turns out those oils are immunity suppressants. Also, it’s easy to see that since the double bonds are week the free radicals would preferentially bound with them, producing all sorts of toxic products.
Of course the USA needs more free radicals, like you and me.
Is _Trick and Treat_ by Barry Groves on you recommended reading
list? I can’t see it, the content is blocked by a “Lets Hunger Together” screen, although the comments are visible.
Well, from the news
http://www.cnbc.com/2015/08/28/amgen-wins-approval-for-second-biotech-cholesterol-drug.html
Amgen has won federal approval for the second medicine in a new class of pricey biotech drugs that reduce artery-clogging cholesterol more than older statin drugs that have been used for decades
The inherent bias.
Ug, $14,100/yr, and they expect to be able to push the drug onto at least 8 million users. Or about $113B per year.
So let’s do the math, just this morning I was pricing out a side of grass fed beef. I would guess about 200lbs for about $1200. I am still reading Nina’s great book (The Big Fat Surprise), to learn the average family of 4 consumed about 2lbs of read meat per day, on average around the late 1800’s. And of course, BTW, 1/4 or 1/6 (can’t remember exact number) of the population was over 50 with almost no recording occurrences of chest pain, let alone heart attacks. So, that $14k could purchase close to 12 sides of beef, or say 2400lbs of beef, not only enough to feed that family of the patient (730lbs/yr), but 2 other families of 4 as well 🙂 And that would be tasty medicine.
And yup I made that leap, but in the time were vegetables rarely graced a families plate, and fruit was very seasonable, people might have complained about gout and migraines, but were, by the best history can show, heart attack free!
I still can not imagine taking a drug that is an all out front assault on your endocrine system!
Back to the common core math (/sic), so, that $113B, if we could get grass fed beef at bulk rates, say $4/lbs, that $113B would be each of the approximate 300 million in the US with 0.26lbs of beef per day. Yes, for the amount of money we may very possibly spend, treating 8 million people with a super-statin, we could go past the half way mark of feeding every single person in the US.
How’s that for perspective!
My perspective is that the beef would taste a lot better than the drug.
That’s about a dollar a day for every American on average, to treat a surrogate marker.
Pleeeease tell me where you get a price of $6/lb for grass fed beef – that is widely available and not just an exceptional outlier; much less $4/lb, which is a dream.
Could we get that kind of price (especially the latter) if production of said product went up? Maybe. But we shouldn’t throw that kind of price around as if it’s a given.
I am not sure, but I think that is the price if you buy a half a cow. When you buy bulk the price does improve from buying a package in the market.
If we’re just talking ground beef I can get it for $6/pound at Whole Foods or Harris Teeter (in the DC area). I also order beef from Polyface Farms (Joel Salatin’s Family Farm – they have delivery dates all over Virginia) and you can get their “larders” from $5.85 – $6.40 a pound. It’s not a lot of the highest end cuts but still pretty good. I don’t think you can buy whole cows from them but a lot of other farms do and the more you buy (especially when including all cuts), the price definitely goes down. You can get pretty cheap pork fat to render you own lard too (I think I paid $5 for a huge bag of fat).
I read some of the comments at the end of that article on the school teacher. Some still think he was paid by McDonald’s another said he lost weight because McDonald’s is void of any nutritional value and he’ll die of a heart attack from all that saturated fat. Somebody left the idiot bag open.
The only concern I have for the teacher is that his cholesterol went from a reasonable 249 down to under 170.
As I found out, if you dare say McDonald’s isn’t the cause of obesity, the only explanation some nitwits can imagine is that Ronald McDonald bribed you to say it.
What is staggering is the fact that one said nitwit proclaimed the weight loss on the “fact” that McDonald’s has “NO nutritional value”. I’m past the veneer finish on my desk and slowly making my way to the other side.
Be careful. Once you’re past the finish, splinters can be a real hazard.
Pretty much the same mindset for questioning the climate religion…you’re being paid by the Koch brothers and Big Oil.
jb
Just a quick clarification from someone who works at a burn care device mfg. plant. Pig skin is only used for training purposes for surgeons, similar to the tattoo artists. It is not used on patients.
Dear ole dad should have stopped eating trans fats and industrial seed oils. Turns out that cancer rates went up amongst smokers when USDA
diet recommended eating those industrial seed oils. Turns out those oils are immunity suppressants. Also, it’s easy to see that since the double bonds are week the free radicals would preferentially bound with them, producing all sorts of toxic products.
Of course the USA needs more free radicals, like you and me.
Is _Trick and Treat_ by Barry Groves on you recommended reading
list? I can’t see it, the content is blocked by a “Lets Hunger Together” screen, although the comments are visible.
I don’t know what happened to the Amazon book-list widget. Guess I’ll have to look into it.
Well, from the news
http://www.cnbc.com/2015/08/28/amgen-wins-approval-for-second-biotech-cholesterol-drug.html
Amgen has won federal approval for the second medicine in a new class of pricey biotech drugs that reduce artery-clogging cholesterol more than older statin drugs that have been used for decades
The inherent bias.
Ug, $14,100/yr, and they expect to be able to push the drug onto at least 8 million users. Or about $113B per year.
So let’s do the math, just this morning I was pricing out a side of grass fed beef. I would guess about 200lbs for about $1200. I am still reading Nina’s great book (The Big Fat Surprise), to learn the average family of 4 consumed about 2lbs of read meat per day, on average around the late 1800’s. And of course, BTW, 1/4 or 1/6 (can’t remember exact number) of the population was over 50 with almost no recording occurrences of chest pain, let alone heart attacks. So, that $14k could purchase close to 12 sides of beef, or say 2400lbs of beef, not only enough to feed that family of the patient (730lbs/yr), but 2 other families of 4 as well 🙂 And that would be tasty medicine.
And yup I made that leap, but in the time were vegetables rarely graced a families plate, and fruit was very seasonable, people might have complained about gout and migraines, but were, by the best history can show, heart attack free!
I still can not imagine taking a drug that is an all out front assault on your endocrine system!
Back to the common core math (/sic), so, that $113B, if we could get grass fed beef at bulk rates, say $4/lbs, that $113B would be each of the approximate 300 million in the US with 0.26lbs of beef per day. Yes, for the amount of money we may very possibly spend, treating 8 million people with a super-statin, we could go past the half way mark of feeding every single person in the US.
How’s that for perspective!
My perspective is that the beef would taste a lot better than the drug.
That’s about a dollar a day for every American on average, to treat a surrogate marker.
Pleeeease tell me where you get a price of $6/lb for grass fed beef – that is widely available and not just an exceptional outlier; much less $4/lb, which is a dream.
Could we get that kind of price (especially the latter) if production of said product went up? Maybe. But we shouldn’t throw that kind of price around as if it’s a given.
I am not sure, but I think that is the price if you buy a half a cow. When you buy bulk the price does improve from buying a package in the market.
If we’re just talking ground beef I can get it for $6/pound at Whole Foods or Harris Teeter (in the DC area). I also order beef from Polyface Farms (Joel Salatin’s Family Farm – they have delivery dates all over Virginia) and you can get their “larders” from $5.85 – $6.40 a pound. It’s not a lot of the highest end cuts but still pretty good. I don’t think you can buy whole cows from them but a lot of other farms do and the more you buy (especially when including all cuts), the price definitely goes down. You can get pretty cheap pork fat to render you own lard too (I think I paid $5 for a huge bag of fat).
Well that goes a long way toward explaining the skull and crossbones inked on the inside of my silk purse. Just a little brevity on this dreary August morning in Washington state. Expecting rain to help douse the worst fire year in eons, we can’t wait. Never watched QL either Tom, very entertaining scene. I remember something similar in our household between my dear Grandmother and me.
s/b levity not brevity….oh well
I read some of the comments at the end of that article on the school teacher. Some still think he was paid by McDonald’s another said he lost weight because McDonald’s is void of any nutritional value and he’ll die of a heart attack from all that saturated fat. Somebody left the idiot bag open.
The only concern I have for the teacher is that his cholesterol went from a reasonable 249 down to under 170.
As I found out, if you dare say McDonald’s isn’t the cause of obesity, the only explanation some nitwits can imagine is that Ronald McDonald bribed you to say it.
What is staggering is the fact that one said nitwit proclaimed the weight loss on the “fact” that McDonald’s has “NO nutritional value”. I’m past the veneer finish on my desk and slowly making my way to the other side.
Be careful. Once you’re past the finish, splinters can be a real hazard.
Pretty much the same mindset for questioning the climate religion…you’re being paid by the Koch brothers and Big Oil.
jb
Whoa!
1) Cisna did to herself what she later criticised about “Super-Size Me”, but she lost weight, and she seems to believe she shouldn’t have lost any.
2) It is sad what youtube does to videos from series and movies nobody will ever buy. But this decission creates an oportunity to a new and better “youtube” that can offer such content in a proper way.
3) I watched the video a bit and I cried. I used to treat bug my mother with that. It is terrible to do harm to people you love just because you think they should do this or that. Culture puts people against each other for fun and profit. People need the right information, but impetuosity breeds contempt and rebelliousness, and they stick with misinformation. To anyone reading this and thinking in “converting” a parent or a sibling into a low carb diet: Do not try to push anything, or they will insist on doing the exact opposite. It doesn’t matter your good intentions, nor your knowledge. Unless you have lost 200 pounds on a low-carb diet, they will never listen. Even then, I don’t think most people would listen. People have to assimilate information by themselves, make their own decissions. Criticism will only cause trouble for everyone. Do not even attempt to use subliminal messages. It is a bad idea. Adults must want to change, and then research a little, and then commit themselves to do what must be done. Other adults can only support, but never lead. Therapists know they must never allow clients to assume the role of children. They are just consultants, not parents or bosses or anything like that. Adults must take care of themselves, and other adults must leave them alone.
Well that goes a long way toward explaining the skull and crossbones inked on the inside of my silk purse. Just a little brevity on this dreary August morning in Washington state. Expecting rain to help douse the worst fire year in eons, we can’t wait. Never watched QL either Tom, very entertaining scene. I remember something similar in our household between my dear Grandmother and me.
s/b levity not brevity….oh well
Whoa!
1) Cisna did to herself what she later criticised about “Super-Size Me”, but she lost weight, and she seems to believe she shouldn’t have lost any.
2) It is sad what youtube does to videos from series and movies nobody will ever buy. But this decission creates an oportunity to a new and better “youtube” that can offer such content in a proper way.
3) I watched the video a bit and I cried. I used to treat bug my mother with that. It is terrible to do harm to people you love just because you think they should do this or that. Culture puts people against each other for fun and profit. People need the right information, but impetuosity breeds contempt and rebelliousness, and they stick with misinformation. To anyone reading this and thinking in “converting” a parent or a sibling into a low carb diet: Do not try to push anything, or they will insist on doing the exact opposite. It doesn’t matter your good intentions, nor your knowledge. Unless you have lost 200 pounds on a low-carb diet, they will never listen. Even then, I don’t think most people would listen. People have to assimilate information by themselves, make their own decissions. Criticism will only cause trouble for everyone. Do not even attempt to use subliminal messages. It is a bad idea. Adults must want to change, and then research a little, and then commit themselves to do what must be done. Other adults can only support, but never lead. Therapists know they must never allow clients to assume the role of children. They are just consultants, not parents or bosses or anything like that. Adults must take care of themselves, and other adults must leave them alone.
Great beef post Thomes.E
In all fairness, I’m currently using chewable vitamins because of my intense gag reflex thanks to mornings sickness. I’ll return to the good ones in a month or so 😛
Great beef post Thomes.E
In all fairness, I’m currently using chewable vitamins because of my intense gag reflex thanks to mornings sickness. I’ll return to the good ones in a month or so 😛
Adult gummy vitamins are a god-send for my sister since swallowing medium to large pills gives her quite a bit of trouble due to gag-reflex, and often vitamins are on the large side. It was a big help when she was pregnant and needed the pre-natal supps.
On the other hand, I know a guy who takes loads of vitamins and supplements each day, all of them gummy. He calls them candy. He’s VERY diabetic. Oy.
If you can’t swallow regular vitamins, sure, I see the point.
Adult gummy vitamins are a god-send for my sister since swallowing medium to large pills gives her quite a bit of trouble due to gag-reflex, and often vitamins are on the large side. It was a big help when she was pregnant and needed the pre-natal supps.
On the other hand, I know a guy who takes loads of vitamins and supplements each day, all of them gummy. He calls them candy. He’s VERY diabetic. Oy.
If you can’t swallow regular vitamins, sure, I see the point.
I’m still amazed anyone could find Super Size Me enlightening or clever. It was a shameless, ignorant smear piece. Nobody but a microscopic fraction of the population force feeds themselves 5K cal/day of fast food, so the dietary experiment is not at all relevant.
Back when that movie was recent & famous, the quickest way for someone to lose my respect was to say they were inspired and/or influenced by that movie.
I suspect it would be what it was, even before I saw it.
I’m still amazed anyone could find Super Size Me enlightening or clever. It was a shameless, ignorant smear piece. Nobody but a microscopic fraction of the population force feeds themselves 5K cal/day of fast food, so the dietary experiment is not at all relevant.
Back when that movie was recent & famous, the quickest way for someone to lose my respect was to say they were inspired and/or influenced by that movie.
I suspect it would be what it was, even before I saw it.
Speaking of “In the news…”, you’re gonna LOVE this one 🙂
It’s an article stating that a study (oh boy…here we go!) has shown that woodstoves are much worse than autos when it comes to air pollution, and are actually killing people.
Sounds interesting so far, right?
BUUUUTTTTTTT… it turns out, and this is a real corker, that the pollution caused by woodstoves ONLY KILLS MEN.
Money line from the study: “Deaths among men fell by 11.4 per cent, particularly from cardiovascular causes, which saw a decline of 17.9 per cent, and from respiratory causes, which retreated by 22.8 per cent.
There was no statistically significant fall among women, a question that was not addressed by the study. ”
Link to the article: https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2015/09/02/wood-burners-worse-than-cars-for-contaminating-air/
So our wood stove will kill me, but not Chareva.
Exactly. And the girls are safe too.
Single women and lesbian couples are free to heat with wood. It’s men that it takes it’s cruel toll on.
How can anyone read a study like that, with a statement like that, and take it seriously.
Speaking of “In the news…”, you’re gonna LOVE this one 🙂
It’s an article stating that a study (oh boy…here we go!) has shown that woodstoves are much worse than autos when it comes to air pollution, and are actually killing people.
Sounds interesting so far, right?
BUUUUTTTTTTT… it turns out, and this is a real corker, that the pollution caused by woodstoves ONLY KILLS MEN.
Money line from the study: “Deaths among men fell by 11.4 per cent, particularly from cardiovascular causes, which saw a decline of 17.9 per cent, and from respiratory causes, which retreated by 22.8 per cent.
There was no statistically significant fall among women, a question that was not addressed by the study. ”
Link to the article: https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2015/09/02/wood-burners-worse-than-cars-for-contaminating-air/
So our wood stove will kill me, but not Chareva.
Exactly. And the girls are safe too.
Single women and lesbian couples are free to heat with wood. It’s men that it takes it’s cruel toll on.
How can anyone read a study like that, with a statement like that, and take it seriously.
Haha, the Quantum Leap TV show reference reminded me of the scene in Groundhog Day (1993), where Bill Murry, is sitting in the diner at a table loaded with food and stuffing his face. And Andie MacDowell, asks him if he’s worried about his cholesterol?
Haha, the Quantum Leap TV show reference reminded me of the scene in Groundhog Day (1993), where Bill Murry, is sitting in the diner at a table loaded with food and stuffing his face. And Andie MacDowell, asks him if he’s worried about his cholesterol?
I love the movie “My Cousin Vinnie,” but it’s yet another one with a reference to that dangerous cholesterol. I hope someday people look back and laugh at those remarks.