After 1978, two strangely related things happened: a new set of regulations for processed meat limited the amount of nitrite used in hot dogs, forcing manufacturers to add ascorbate or erythorbate instead. And the following that year, there was a major dropoff in colon cancer deaths. Now, researchers are questioning the link between the two.

Nitrite preserved processed meats are loaded with nonvolatile N-nitroso compounds, but the addition of ascorbate and erythorbate replaced them, with only 1/90th of the amount remaining afterwards. There has been a significant amount of work on the link to processed meat with colorectal cancer, especially with the presence of nitrates and nitrites. The thing is that if this correlation was iron clad, then the there would have been a huge drop in the incidence of the cancer with the government regulation. Instead, there's been a major drop in the deaths from the disease — which is something very different. So while fewer people are dying of colon cancer, the drop in nitrites doesn't seem to have meant fewer people getting it.

"The drop in N-nitroso compound content caused by the mandated changes in processed meat should have been accompanied by a drop in the incidence of colon cancer," said Professor Sidney S. Mirvish, and the reduction in deaths "may have been due mostly to earlier detection and better treatment of this disease."

UPDATE: An earlier version of this article significantly misinterpreted part of the study — which was my mistake. It has been updated and corrected. Apologies.

Photo by Kenneth Sponsler via Shutterstock

After 1978, two strangely related things happened: a new set of regulations for processed meat limited the amount of nitrite used in hot dogs, forcing manufacturers to add ascorbate or erythorbate instead. And the following that year, there was a major dropoff in colon cancer deaths. Now, researchers are questioning the link between the two.

Nitrite preserved processed meats are loaded with nonvolatile N-nitroso compounds, but the addition of ascorbate and erythorbate replaced them, with only 1/90th of the amount remaining afterwards. There has been a significant amount of work on the link to processed meat with colorectal cancer, especially with the presence of nitrates and nitrites. The thing is that if this correlation was iron clad, then the there would have been a huge drop in the incidence of the cancer with the government regulation. Instead, there's been a major drop in the deaths from the disease — which is something very different. So while fewer people are dying of colon cancer, the drop in nitrites doesn't seem to have meant fewer people getting it.

"The drop in N-nitroso compound content caused by the mandated changes in processed meat should have been accompanied by a drop in the incidence of colon cancer," said Professor Sidney S. Mirvish, and the reduction in deaths "may have been due mostly to earlier detection and better treatment of this disease."

UPDATE: An earlier version of this article significantly misinterpreted part of the study — which was my mistake. It has been updated and corrected. Apologies.

Photo by Kenneth Sponsler via Shutterstock

Miraculin is a special protein that makes people perceive sour tastes as sweetness instead. At least, for a limited time. Now we know why it works.

Taste adventurers will be interested in a little chemical named miraculin. It was used in West Africa as a way of making some meals more palatable. A small red berry contained trace amounts of the chemical, and before chowing down on something that was certain to be too sour, or stale, people chewed a berry or two, letting the chemical coat their mouths. In 1968 miraculin was first isolated and extracted deliberately from the berry. Since then it's been sold in small tablets that people let dissolve in their mouth.

Recently, scientists have proved exactly how it works. We perceive foods as sweet when they bind to certain receptors on our tongue. Sugar, aspartame, and other sweeteners all bind to the same proteins. Sour foods bind to other receptors. Some thought that miraculin modified the sour food enough for them to bind to the sweetness receptors. In fact, it's the miraculin itself that binds to the receptors itself. It can only do that, however, in a sour environment. Outside of a bath of the acids that make food sour, it doesn't bind to any receptor at all, transforming itself into something completely tasteless.

It's also likely that miraculin blocks the receptor for sourness, at least partially. The combined effect is to turn any hint of sourness in any food sweet. There are any number of foods that would have their tastes significantly altered. It might be interesting to grab some miraculin before a buffet. Not appetizing, but interesting.

Image: Foodaholic

Via Scientific American.

Stephany Aulenback tried out a recipe for "Chemical Apple Pie," a beloved science experiment that uses cream of tartar (potassium bitartrate) to trick the human tongue into tasting apples, though no apples are, in fact, used in the pie. The pie tasted pretty good, and Aulenback unearthed a lot of interesting history of the dish:

Further searching revealed that it is an even older recipe than that, dating back at least to the mid 1800s. Recipes for it have been found in the Confederate Receipt Book in 1863 and Mrs. B. C. Whiting's How We Cook In Los Angeles (1894) in which she referred to it as "California Pioneer Apple Pie, 1852" (if you follow that link, choose Mock Apple Pie from the menu on left). It's certainly easy to imagine that, historically, apples were difficult to come by out of season, at the end of a long journey across the prairies, or in an poorly supplied army camp. (As Mrs. Whiting is quoted saying, "The deception was most complete and readily accepted. Apples at this early date were a dollar a pound, and we young people all craved a piece of Mother's apple pie to appease our homesick feelings.") Presumably crackers—or the cracker-like foods of the time—kept better, and one sometimes needed to dream up new, more interesting ways to force oneself to ingest them yet again.

Apparently, the Nabisco company appropriated the recipe in the 1935 when they printed it on the boxes of their fancy new Ritz crackers; today, most people who are familiar with Mock Apple Pie associate it with Ritz. You can still find the recipe on their site, where they warn you to watch your serving size. Probably because of the calorie and fat content, not the muscle toxin.

(via MeFi)

There's a dirty secret in your glass of orange juice. Even though it says "not from concentrate," it probably sat in a large vat for up to year with all the oxygen was removed from it. This allows it to be preserved and dispensed all year-round. Taking out all the O2 also gets rid of all the flavor. So the juice makers have to add the flavors back in using preformulated recipes full of chemicals called "flavor packs." Mmm, delicious, fresh-squeezed ethyl-butyrate!

Author Aliissa Hamilton covers this in her book, "Squeezed: What You Don't Know About Orange Juice." Of her findings, she writes on the Civl Eats blog:

Juice companies therefore hire flavor and fragrance companies, the same ones that formulate perfumes for Dior and Calvin Klein, to engineer flavor packs to add back to the juice to make it taste fresh. Flavor packs aren't listed as an ingredient on the label because technically they are derived from orange essence and oil. Yet those in the industry will tell you that the flavor packs, whether made for reconstituted or pasteurized orange juice, resemble nothing found in nature. The packs added to juice earmarked for the North American market tend to contain high amounts of ethyl butyrate, a chemical in the fragrance of fresh squeezed orange juice that, juice companies have discovered, Americans favor.

Less you think this is some kind of organic hippy conspiracy theory, deaeration and pasteurization are very real in the orange juice and they do remove flavor. Here is a study to that effect posted on the USDA.gov site.

If this is the type of thing that bothers you, buying OJ from the store in May through June is the only way to ensure that most of the juice is from fresh Valencia oranges. The rest of the year it's reflavored sugar water from a tank farm.

Freshly Squeezed: The Truth About Orange Juice in Boxes [Civil Eats]
Don't get squeezed when shopping for juice [Baltimore Sun]

Ever been unsure whether the wine in your glass is OK to drink?

I certainly have.

But after a few wayward years spent working as a wine maker in some of the most beautiful wine regions in the world, I’ve come to realize that it’s not as difficult as you’d think.

Most wine making faults can be detected just by smelling your wine. All you need is to keep in mind a few key aromas to watch out for. If you can’t smell any of them, you’ll know your wine is probably fine.

It also helps to have a look in the glass.

The color can tell you if the wine has been exposed to excess air. Or if there are signs of bubbles and it’s not meant to be a sparkling wine, I’d be a little worried about that too.

Cloudiness in wine, however, isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Some wine makers prefer to leave their wine unfiltered to avoid the loss of flavor that can come in the pursuit of a perfectly clear, filtered wine.

At the end of the day if it smells delicious and tastes good too, you’ll know you’re onto a good thing.

Maybe time to order another bottle?

8 Simple Signs that Your Wine is Bad

1. The colour browner than you would expect.
When white wine is exposed to air, it takes on a browner colour. When red wine is oxidized, it loses some of its bright red or purple colors and starts looking brown as well. In aged wines, both white and red, this is natural and to be expected. But if your wine is young – only 1 or 2 years old, it can be a sign that the wine has been exposed to too much air. This can either mean the bottle has been open for a few days or it may have happened in the winery or during the bottling process.

A good way to learn how the color changes is to keep an opened bottle of wine for a few days. Then open a fresh bottle of the same wine and compare the color of the two samples. Guaranteed the wine that has been open for longer will look more brown.

2. The wine has bubbles when it’s not mean to.
If you’re expecting the wine to be still and it comes with a bit of fizz, this is a warning sign that some sort of fermentation is occurring in the bottle. Not a good thing. Ask for another bottle, although if the second bottle has the same problems, it’s time to try a different wine.

If you’re at home and there isn’t any more wine, you’ve got a bigger problem. Time to stock the cellar. But for now, it won’t hurt you to drink your unexpected sparkling wine.

3. Smells like wet dog or wet cardboard.
These aromas are associated with cork taint, or the wine being ‘corked’. This is a sign that the cork has had mold growing on it at some stage which left a chemical, known as TCA, in the cork. The mold may be long gone but even tiny amounts of TCA can impart negative flavors on wine.

This can vary from bottle to bottle, so ask for a fresh bottle if you can. If it the last one was corked, the new bottle will taste completely different. It won’t hurt you to drink a corked wine, but depending on the level of the doggy/cardboardy flavors it may not be a very pleasant experience.

4. Smells like band-aids or a barn yard.
In small doses, a little bit of barn yard can add complexity to wine and isn’t necessarily bad. But if all you’re smelling is band-aids or farm animals, it’s a problem with the wine. Generally this is a result of a yeast called brettanomyces or ‘brett’ and is a sign of poor hygiene in the winery, although it can also come from the grapes themselves.

Again, it’s not going to cause any harm to humans, but the bad news is that the whole batch of wine will probably have the same issues. Grabbing a fresh bottle won’t help here.

5. Smells like nail polish remover or vinegar.
A sign that acetic acid bacteria have been at work in your wine causing a fault known as volatile acidity, or VA. Like, brett, a little bit of VA can add complexity and be a good thing, but when it dominates, it becomes a fault. Still, won’t harm you to drink it, although it may give a burning sensation in sensitive people.

6. Smells ‘mousey’.
Another microbial wine making fault, although thankfully not very common. For me, any amount of mouse aroma in a wine is a bad thing, but some people don’t mind it so much. Again, it’s not toxic but very unpleasant – enough to make me happy drinking water.

7. Smells like burnt rubber or cooked cabbage.
Another relatively uncommon wine making fault, caused by the formation of undesirable sulfur compounds in wine. If you can, choose another wine.

8. The wine has no aroma.
This could be because the wine is too cold, or it needs a little air. Warm the glass with your hands and swirl a little to introduce more air. If it still isn’t smelling like much after a few minutes, it could be that the wine just doesn’t have much flavour.

The other explanation could be a very low level of cork taint, enough to strip any good flavors from the wine, but not at a high enough level to exhibit the wet cardboard or doggy unpleasantness normally associated with TCA.

Scientists have found out why people can put the brakes on eating sugar, but will go through an entire bag of potato chips, followed by a plate of fries. It turns out that fats get us stoned.

As much as extra desserts are blamed for the national waistline, it seems that most weight is gained not because of sweets, but because of fatty foods. Potato chips and french fries lead the way in American expansion, and it seems there's a reason for that. They make us feel good not just because of personal taste, but because of physical processes that start the moment they hit the tongue.

When a person tastes fatty foods, a signal goes to their brain. The brain sends it to the intestines via the vagus nerve, at which point the intestines crank up chemicals called endocannabinoids. That name sound familiar? The endocannabinoids relay a message back to the body that basically says, "Eat. Eat like your life depends on it." At one point, it did. Calorie-rich fat built up the fat in the body enough to make it through the next famine. Today, the famine never comes, and the body just keeps fattening up.

This relay of signals doesn't happen in response to sugars or proteins. Only fats turn people into gluttons in this way. This is a way, though, that can be fixed. Endocannabinoids make us feel good, when they're in our brain. Blocking the uptake of them in the brain causes depression and anxiety in humans. These endocannabinoids, however, don't ever reach the brain. They are produced in the gut, and so taking a drug that blocks the production, or uptake, of them in that particular area may not have the same effects. If researchers manage to come up with such a drug, then potato chips and fries could be eaten like a candy bar - a treat instead of a meal.

Read the full scientific article via Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Photo by Marc Dietrich/Shutterstock

Plastic wrap hangs on to everything it touches like grim death. Find out how it manages to glom on to nearly every surface in a kitchen.

There is a debate about what is more the more responsible substance to use: cling wrap or aluminum foil. In this author's opinion, the clear winner is aluminum foil. Why? Because it's the only one that works. Aluminum foil is a humble but hard-working substance. Plastic wrap is an ironed-out version of the blob. It's a confusingly clear substance that sticks to everything in sight, including one's hands and itself, until it's a wadded-up ball of plastic sitting next to a still-uncovered plate of brownies. How does it manage to grab onto everything so well?

Many sources say that it is static cling that keeps the wrap holding tight to everything around it. The plastic acquires a charge and sticks itself to anything with an opposite charge. Many plastic bowls carry a very slight negative charge along their surface, giving the wrap something to hang onto - or be repulsed by. But cling wrap also manages to hang on to metal - which conducts electricity and so would eliminate a difference in charge - and glass, and itself. Some plastic wrap is hydrophilic, grabbing on to any water it gets close to. Some is hydrophobic, repelling water. Water, unless it's pure, also conducts electricity. Plus, all wraps wad up like dirty laundry, or stick on like burrs. If static electricity made them work, they would sometimes be repelled by themselves, or other substances. That would make them impractical to use. It's materials science, not electric charge, that gives cling wrap its clinginess.

Most cling wrap is made of one of two materials; polyvinyl chloride or low-density polyethylene. Both of these are long polymers - chains of molecules. These chains cling to each other very well. In fact, the polymers in polyvinyl chloride are so bound together that they do not let water or air get through them. The military used to spray "Saran," the early name of the chemical, on fighter planes to prevent corrosion. It was also used in upholstery. To make it suitable for home use, companies addes platicisers to make it softer and more malleable.

As time went on, both PVC and plasticizers fell out of favor - though not out of legality. PVC was thought to take up toxins, and plasticisers often came off the wrap and onto food, especially fatty foods like cheese. Companies switched to low-density polyethylene LDPE, and eliminated the plasticisers. LDPE was also cheaper to manufacture, but isn't as much of a barrier against air and water as PVC.

The funny thing is, although both stick to themselves, neither one really sticks to other surfaces. So how do cling wraps grip? Added adhesives. Other chemicals, all minor adhesives, are added to make the cling wraps sticky enough to do their jobs. These adhesives don't completely mix with the LDPE or PVC, so they are available to grab anything that comes by. Cling wraps stick on to things the same way a piece of tape does.

Perhaps its time to get rid of any fancy affectations and just tape food to the plate.

Via Chow, The Teachers Corner, and About.com.

When it comes to our eating habits, we've been living in the future for quite some time. Compared to food of the past, ours is sweeter, its colors are brighter, and (if it's bread) ultra-fluffly-er. Find out about all the neat things that you're eating, even as you read this. That's right. I see that hot pocket.

10. Ethyl Vanillin

You'll find this in a lot of cake mixes, frostings, and ice creams. It's not too exciting, but I'm including it because I think it should start a new trend. Usually, when people find something boring, they call it 'vanilla'. This is unfair. Vanilla is an honorable flavor, used in all kinds of baking, carefully made, and relatively rich. Ethyl vanillin, on the other hand, is a cheap vanilla knock-off, and made from wood pulp. So please, from now on say, "That's so ethyl vanillin." Because - isn't it?

9. Alkali

From vanilla to chocolate! Many lovers of chocolate and cocoa will notice the phrase 'dutch chocolate' or 'processed with alkali' on the side of their packages. Alkali is a basic salt, and neutralizes acids. It gives cocoa a more consistent color and removes some of the bitterness from it. It also removes 'flavanoids'. Guess what they do? That's why many chocolate purists, especially those who like bitter chocolate, will not eat chocolate processed to be flavanoid-free.

8. Caramel Coloring

When you don't have real cocoa to put in food, but you want to make it look like you did, you add caramel coloring. This is sometimes added to mixes and cake batters to make them look chocolatey. Mostly, though, caramel coloring is added to cooked meats, sodas and gravies to give them the golden-brown look that people find appetizing. It's made by cooking up various sugars with agents like ammonium or alkali. Although it's possibly carcinogenic, it hasn't been yanked from shelves, because people love brown food. Love it.

7. Taurine

This is an additive that is much-celebrated by companies that add it. It naturally occurs in shellfish and meat, and has been added to many energy drinks. There has been no evidence that it does any harm to people. There has also been no evidence that it gives people energy. At least this additive can take the Hippocratic Oath.

6. Diacetyl

Diacetyl is a butter flavoring. It's produced naturally as part of the fermentation process of some beers. It's added to instant or movie popcorn to give it that buttery flavor. It's also added to butter. Yes, butter doesn't taste enough like butter nowadays. It needs more butter flavoring in it. Diacetyl isn't particularly harmful to those who eat it, but it causes lung problems in factory workers who inhale it when they process food. Most manufacturers who still use it have their workers wear protective gear.

5. Fumaric Acid

This stuff is in powdered juices, gels, pie fillings, and any other 'fruit like' powder. It's cheap, easy to make, and is an acid that can be turned into dry powder. It gives things a tart flavor.

4. Lecithin

Lecithin is in ice cream, margarine, chocolates, and most kinds of creamy dessert. When creamy things are made fresh and eaten quickly, they don't have time to separate out. Most people who have left all-natural creams or chocolates out for a while notice that eventually they divide into a watery layer and a fatty layer. Lecithin is an emulsifier, which means it keeps that division from happening. It also leads to fluffier cakes and baked goods, so it's in most manufactured baked products. This is one of the few additives that has a health benefit. It seems to bind to a certain protein and help metabolize glucose, which means it could one day be included in a medicine that helps diabetics, or people with high blood pressure.

3. EDTA

The manufacturing process brings food into contact with materials it would rarely be near otherwise. Most foods are exposed to metal while being processed, and some foods, such as soda, are shipped in metal containers. EDTA (ethylenediamine tetraacetic acid) traps particles of metal in the food. Metal particles of the size and quantity that are usually in food aren't dangerous to humans, but they can make the food rancid or muddy the food's artificial colors. EDTA surrounds the particles and prevents them from ruining the food while still allowing us to eat the metal particles that we crave.

Additives like EDTA, that trap metal impurities, are called chelating agents or sequestrants. Chelation therapy - using chelating agents on humans - has successfully saved the lives of people suffering from toxic metal poisoning. It has also been used on patients with autism, although no benefits have been shown, and two children have died as a result of the therapy.

2. Partially Hydrogenated Vegetable Oil

Ah, the old favorite. Vegetable oil is a liquid. When people hydrogenate it, they cook it at high temperatures. The process adds hydrogen atoms to it. This changes the shape of the molecule, and to a certain extent solidifies the oil. Partially hydrogenated oils are a cheap alternative to animal fats (which are also partially solidified at room temperature), but keep longer than animal fats without going rancid.

1. High Fructose Corn Syrup

Give it up for the champ. The most famous product to use this additive is American coca-cola. It's not a point of national pride. Americans go abroad and notice the superior flavor of foreign coke, most of which is made with natural sugar. High fructose corn syrup also makes lab rats fatter than rats which have been eating regular sugar - even if the amount of calories each rat ate is the same. This additive was invented in 1957, when someone found out that adding an enzyme called glucose isomerase to corn produced an incredibly sweet syrup from the plant's natural glucose. Once corn boomed, corn syrup was mass produced in the 70s, and has been earning a bad name for itself, while staying on the market, ever since. But don't worry. You won't be seeing that name on food forever. Manufacturers are petitioning to get the name changed to 'corn sugar.'

Via CSPInet, Small Bites Nutrition, Food Navigator, Chem Ox, Princeton and eHow.

47% of supermarket meat tested around the country in a recent survey had evidence of being tainted by Staphylococcus aureus, which causes most staph infections in humans, including food poisoning and skin infections.

The research was published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases.

You can kill most of these little buggers by cooking food thoroughly and at high heat. However if you don't take proper kitchen precautions you risk contamination from handling the meat and there is also the danger of cross-contamination, like if you use the same knife and cutting surface to chop a salad as you did raw meat.

Multidrug-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus in US Meat and Poultry [Clinical Infectious Diseases]
1 In 4 Supermarket Meat Samples Tainted With Drug-Resistant Bacteria [NPR]

I would trade a cow for these magic beans. Seriously. "Coffee Joulies" are a new invention that are stainless steel "beans" that keep your coffee at the perfect temperature for several hours. Hours.

How do they work? Their Kickstarter page says:

his material is designed to melt at 140 degrees Fahrenheit, and absorbs a lot of energy as it melts. This is how Joulies cool your coffee down three times faster than normal. Once it reaches this temperature, the special material begins to solidify again, releasing the energy it stored when it melted. This is how Joulies keep your coffee warm twice as long.

Coffee Joulies - your coffee, just right [Kickstarter]

Here's a trick question: How much sodium does Campbell's "25% less sodium" tomato soup contain compared to regular Campbell's tomato soup? Would you believe that both contain 480 mg? And that the first one costs more? Four NJ housewives couldn't, and a federal judge has ruled that their lawsuit against Campbell's over what they call misleading labels can proceed.

Campbell's reply is that the "25% less sodium" claim is as compared to the average of "all varieties" of condensed soup, not tomato. "Campbell has complete confidence in the accuracy of our labels and our marketing communications and that they meet regulatory and other legal requirements," the company told Reuters.

Below the big yellow "25%" and big white "LESS SODIUM" on the front of the can in smaller yellow text it says "than regular condensed soup."

They may be right about meeting statutory requirements, but that doesn't mean a reasonable consumer can't still be mislead by the label on the front of the can. The lawsuit seeks class action status.

M'm! M'm! Salty? [Reuters]

PREVIOUSLY
Zero Nutritional Difference Between Campbell's "Healthy" Tomato Soups And Regular, Just Higher Price

Ever wonder why salted chocolate and caramel taste even better than unsalted? Or why adding a pinch of salt to cookies makes them sweeter? A group of researchers has found evidence that it's because you have intestinal cells in your taste buds.

That's right - your intestines are full of sugar sensors, and some of them are in your mouth too. Scientists already knew that many human organs have sugar sensors, which are there to help process glucose and insulin in your blood. It turns out, however, that these sensors have a different job in your mouth. According to a release about the study:

An intestinal glucose sensor also found to be located in the sweet-sensitive taste cells may provide an explanation for another mystery of sweet taste: why just a pinch of table salt tastes sweet or salt added to baked goods enhances sweet taste. Known as SGLT1, this sensor is a transporter that moves glucose into the sweet taste cell when sodium is present, thus triggering the cell to register sweetness.

The upshot of the study is that our tongues are sensitive in ways we didn't realize before. Molecular neurobiologist Robert Margolskee, who worked on the study, said:

The taste system continues to amaze me at how smart it is and how it serves to integrate taste sensation with digestive processes.

Cellular physiologist Karen K. Yee, lead scientist on the study, said that knowing how our tongue's sugar sensors work could help scientists determine a way to limit sugar cravings.

Read the full scientific paper on PNAS

CBC News, the Canadian national TV network, has caused a stir in the food-blog world with the results of a nationwide investigation that found antibiotic-resistant bacteria contaminating supermarket chicken. In its words:

Chicken bought at major supermarkets across Canada is frequently contaminated with superbugs — bacteria that many antibiotics cannot kill — an investigation by CBC TV’s Marketplace has found.

Marketplace researchers — along with their colleagues at Radio-Canada’s food show L’Epicerie — bought 100 samples of chicken from major grocery chains in Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal… The 100 samples were sent to a lab for analysis. Two-thirds of the chicken samples had bacteria. That in itself is not unusual — E. coli, Salmonella and Campylobacter are often present in raw chicken.

What was surprising was that all of the bacteria uncovered during the Marketplace sampling were resistant to at least one antibiotic. Some of the bacteria found were resistant to six, seven or even eight different types of antibiotics.

“This is the most worrisome study I’ve seen of its kind,” said Rick Smith, the head of Environmental Defence, a consumer advocacy group.

I haven’t had time to watch the full program, but no question I think this kind of reporting is worth doing. Nothing brings the threat of agricultural antibiotic use home to people like showing them that resistant bacteria are living on the meat they might have brought home last night.

One important point, though: Don’t think for a moment this is just a Canadian problem.

Last month, a team from the University of Ioannina in Greece analyzed in Foodborne Pathogens and Disease 428 samples of various retail meats they bought in northwest Greece over three years:

E. coli from chicken exhibited high rates of resistance to ciprofloxacin (62.5%) followed by lamb/goat (10.9%), pork (15.7%), and beef (27.9%) meat. Resistance to nitrofurantoin dominated in the lamb/goat isolates (60%). Resistance to tetracycline predominated in pork (68.2%) and chicken (62.5%), and resistance to aminoglycosides dominated in lamb/goat meat isolates. S. aureus resistance to clindamycin predominated in lamb/goat isolates (50%), whereas resistance to ciprofloxacin predominated in the pork strains, but no resistance to methicillin was observed. Of the enterococci isolates 21.1% were resistant to vancomycin. High resistance to ampicillin (96%) was observed in Y. enterocolitica and all of the C. jejuni isolates were resistant to ampicillin, cephalothin, and cefuroxime. These results indicate that meat can be a source of resistant bacteria, which could potentially be spread to the community through the food chain.

Last year, a team from the University of Iceland found fluoroquinolone-resistant E. coli passing from chickens to humans there (the drug Cipro is a fluoroquinolone, and the human isolates were Cipro-resistant), a multi-institution team from Canada found resistance to third-generation cephalosporins in Salmonella enterica spreading from chicken meat to humans, and the Irish quasi-governmental group SafeFood released a long report (and hosted a conference) on “The Problem of Antimicrobial Resistance in the Food Chain.” And of course MRSA ST398, the strain of drug-resistant staph that arose in food animals, has now been found in retails meats across the EU.

Oh, but none of those countries are the United States, you say. Then take a look at these:

Those graphics come from a little-read report put out every year by the US Food and Drug Administration as part of its participation in NARMS, the National Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring System that’s shared by the FDA, USDA and CDC. The FDA handles the part of NARMS that looks for resistant bacteria in meat (CDC does human illnesses, USDA does live animals), and the figures above show the percentages of Salmonella and enterococci that were found in retail chicken breasts between 2002 and 2008 (the most recent report) and were resistant to various drugs. The bar along the bottom of each figure shows the major drug classes. So in 2008: 45% of Salmonella on chicken were resistant to tetracycline and 30% to penicillins; among enterococci (common gut bacteria, and therefore common contaminants of meat during slaughtering), 65% resistant to tetracycline and more than 90% to lincosamides, which include the everyday drug clindamycin.

In the narrative portion of the report, the FDA said:

38.2% of chicken breast Salmonella isolates were resistant to ? 3 antimicrobial classes in 2008 compared to 51% in ground turkey, an increase in both from previous years. From 2002–2007, multidrug resistance to ? 3 antimicrobial classes ranged from 20–34.4% among chicken breast and 20.3–42.6% for ground turkey. More than 15% of chicken breast and ground turkey isolates showed resistance to ? 4 classes in 2008.

So, just to underline: Multi-drug resistant superbugs aren’t only on chicken in Canada; if you buy chicken in the United States, they are more than likely on your chicken too.

And whatever country they are occurring in, the solution is the same. Drug-resistant bacteria in food won’t diminish until we reduce the amount of drugs that food animals receive while they are raised.

Update: At Grist’s Meat Wagon, Tom Philpott very kindly points out that I actually broke the news of the latest NARMS report, which I didn’t realize (it was a busy day; see my next post for why). Apparently the report was posted to the FDA web site on Dec. 17, but neither of us can find any evidence that it was publicized, such as a press release on the FDA’s press site. His larger point is important:

We find out from the report that the FDA has been monitoring the situation since 2002 — and finding plenty of antibiotic-resistant strains on meat sold directly to consumers. And they’ve been sharing the information with other leading regulatory/public health agencies — but not so much to the people they’re supposed to be protecting and informing: i.e., us. … six weeks since the FDA report and a year since Sharfstein’s testimony [in 2010, promising scrutiny by the Obama adminsitration - m.], policy hasn’t moved at all. Where are the loud public statements from the FDA trumpeting the fact that our factory farms are cooking up superbugs that make their way to our meat? Where’s the USDA on this topic, which is supposed to protect the public from tainted meat? Where’s CDC?

Flickr/EssjayNZ/CC

Here's something to choke on. The "blueberries" inside that muffin or cereal you love so much might not actually have ever been blueberries. Instead, they are a composite of sugars and starches that have been dyed blue. Check the label. If it says "blueberry flavored chrunchlets," for instance, those are actually sugars, soybean oil, red #40 and blue #2. Reached for comment, Kellogg's told NPR that the stuff is "labeled in compliance with applicable laws and regulations." Well that takes care of that. If it's not illegal and is profitable, do it.

Fake Blueberries Often Masquerade As Real Fruit [NPR]

Chili peppers are served at the same temperature every other ingredient in a curry. Why, then, do we universally describe them as tasting hot? Mass synesthesia? Or something else?

There are plenty of instances in which people associate unlike things. The color red is almost always associated with heat, although the color is on the lower end of the energy spectrum of visible colors. The explanation for this is easy to come by: fire and heated metal generally have reddish tones. It's true that as the flames and metal get hotter, they shift their color to blue, but the red is what's rooted in everyday experience, and so it is associated with heat. Sight is a relatively concrete sense. Although people have different opinions on what they see, most of them see the same thing.

Taste is a much more slippery aspect of human existence. The very word, ‘taste,' has come to explain the inexplicably different way that people react to the same stimulus. They just have different tastes.

Many people, when given food laced with a new ingredient, are unable to identify what ingredient has been added to it, even if it is an ingredient with which they are familiar. Taste changes completely from person to person, depending on their personality, history, and recent experience (few want to follow a mouthful of scrambled eggs with grape jelly).

Despite all this variation, when people are given a jalapeno pepper, or a snoot full of cayenne; they'll reach for a glass of water, fan their tongues, and call it ‘hot'. When people are exposed to spice, they say that it ‘burns' them. They say it even if they don't taste is but accidentally touch a bit of it to their eyes, nose, or even their fingertips.
It can't burn them. It's not actually hot. Why do people say that it does?

Foods we call spicy or hot, contain capsaicin. There's nothing all too special about this particular chemical compound except for the fact that it gloms on to a receptor called VR1. That receptor sends a signal to the brain. VR1 is not primarily meant to let people know they're eating red hot chili peppers. Instead, it's meant to send signals to the brain when the body has been exposed to acids or to extreme heat. A pepper might not be hot in temperature, but once VR1 is triggered, that doesn't matter. The VR1 receptor can't send a signal to the brain saying ‘delicious pepper' any more than two cymbals, when clashed together, can make a sound like flute. Once the capsaicin binds to it, it rushes to let the brain know that something downstairs is burning, and it needs to send water.

Sadly, water won't soothe this burn. Casaicin is not water-soluble so it can stay intact in an ice bath. Sugar or fat will take it apart, so skip a glass of water and run for chocolate milk.

Via Cell.com, Wise Geek and Wired.

For as long as there have been hack comedians, humanity has pondered the question: "What's the deal with airline food?" Well, science has figured it out: airplanes are just too damn loud for food to taste good.

Generally speaking, it's not just that airplane food tastes bad - most passengers, when asked, report that the food is bland and a bit flavorless. Airlines have been very heavily seasoning and salting their foods for years in an attempt to counteract that, but they don't have much success to show for it. As it turns out, it might have been easier to just figure out a way to make the engines run silently.

That rather strange conclusion comes from a new study at the University of Manchester. Researcher Andy Woods noticed airplanes weren't the only place where food had to be heavily seasoned to get any flavor, and he wondered about a possible connection:

"There's a general opinion that aeroplane foods aren't fantastic. I'm sure airlines do their best - and given that, we wondered if there are other reasons why the food would not be so good. One thought was perhaps the background noise has some impact. NASA gives their space explorers very strong-tasting foods, because for some reason thay can't taste food that strongly - again, perhaps it's the background noise. There was no previous research on this, so we went about seeing if the hunch was correct."

Woods's study was pretty small - only 48 people were tested, so another round of experiments is definitely needed to be sure about this - but the results were striking. The test subjects were blindfolded and given headphones that were either completely silent or fairly noisy. They were then fed sweet foods like cookies and salty foods like potato chips, and asked to rate how intense the flavors were and how much they liked those flavors.

In the noisier environment, the test subjects found food less flavorful - the saltiness and sweetness were way down - but actually found the food quite a bit crunchier than those eating in silence. Woods believes this is because the background noise distracts diners, which makes people's brains unable to properly concentrate on the flavor of the food. Since crunchiness has a noise component to it as well, that might explain why people notice it more in noisier settings.

There's also the possibility that the food tastes better the more people like the noise they're hearing, although Woods says there will need to be additional tests to track down that effect. So if you want to enjoy your airplane food, learn to love the sound of jet engines...or invest in some good quality headphones.

[BBC News; also check out Gawker's take on the story]