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Wednesday, September 05, 2018

Fast Food and Dihydrogen Monoxide


The Washington Post had a rather flimsy story related to the dangers of “fast food” which they obliquely define as “processed food” which, in my mind, goes way beyond the “fast food” label. They explicitly define it as food sold in places without waiters. [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/04/15/researchers-have-found-an-alarming-new-side-effect-from-eating-fast-food/]

After reading it, it appears to me to be just another scare story built on a fabric of weak associations. Given all the dangers from chemicals, industrial food processing, factory farms, etc., one would expect the life expectancy to have decreased; and yet, in the 1950s one could expect to live an average of 46.6 years; those born between 2005 and 2010 may reach in average an age of 67.6 years. Maybe all those harmful chemicals are really good for you. The suggestion of the study's authors "seems" to be that "fast food" as they define it is more subject to exposure from plastics during processing, yet as I look on the shelves in my cupboard I see graham crackers and whole grain cereal packaged in plastic and cans of vegetables (remember the BPA scares?). Buy frozen to avoid that? All frozen food is processed and delivered in plastic packaging. Milk is sold in plastic bottles. The study would have been much stronger had they compared the presence of phthalates in all foods, canned, frozen, restaurant, fast food, etc. and then looked for a cause-and-effect between phthalates and illness.

Next we'll be worried about dihydrogen monoxide in food (chemists may now start laughing). There is a direct correlation between the consumption of DHMO and death. Now that's really scary.

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