Login
Scientists Figured out How Many Chemicals Enter Our Bodies From Food Packaging
Shrink-wrap sealed around a piece of raw meat. Takeout containers filled with restaurant leftovers. Plastic bottles filled with soft drinks.
These are just a few types of food packaging that surround humans every day. And a new study released Monday shows the chemical toll of all that wrapping — and how it might affect the human body.
Researchers from Switzerland and other countries discovered that of the roughly 14,000 known chemicals in food packaging, 3,601 — or about 25% — have been found in the human body, whether in samples of blood, hair or breast milk.
Those chemicals include metals, volatile organic compounds, per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances or PFAS, phthalates and many others known to disrupt the endocrine system and cause cancer or other diseases.
The study, published in the Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology, didn’t directly examine the link to these illnesses. But the researchers say their inventory of chemicals can help future research into health risks.
Pentagon Gives $1.5 Million to Dem Activist’s Fake Meat Laboratory
The Department of Defense awarded nearly $1.5 million in taxpayer money to a Democratic donor’s company, which makes fake lab-grown meat from fermented fungus.
The Better Meat Company, which uses fungus protein to make fake meat in a lab, is led by CEO Paul Shapiro, an activist with a history of donating to Democrats.
The taxpayer-funded grant will bankroll a “bioproduction facility for mycoprotein ingredients that are shelf-stable, have high protein and fiber contents, and can be dehydrated.”
The company creates the phony meat by feeding water and nutrients to fungal roots stored in a bioreactor, turning the material into a semi-solid gray liquid that is strained to finally become the end product.
A Pentagon spokesman told The Daily Wire that the award “is in support of a bioproduction facility for types of protein that are shelf-stable, have high protein and fiber content, and can rapidly support the sustainment requirements of our globally-deployed forces.”
‘We Think You Should Throw It Away’: Food Safety Scientists Urge Caution After Alarming Levels of Lead Found in Cinnamon Products
A recent study by food safety scientists has revealed alarming levels of lead in some popular cinnamon brands in the U.S., prompting concerns over their safety.
Consumer Reports (CR) tested 36 ground cinnamon products and spice blends, finding that one-third of them contained lead levels exceeding New York’s threshold of one part per million — the point at which a recall is triggered.
This discovery has put twelve cinnamon brands on a “never use” list due to the potential health risks posed by chronic lead exposure.
“If you have one of those products, we think you should throw it away,” James Rogers, Ph.D., the director of food safety research and testing at CR said in the report.
“Even small amounts of lead pose a risk because, over time, it can accumulate in the body and remain there for years, seriously harming health.”
Bird Flu Outbreaks Die Down, but Colorado Keeps Monitoring Cows and Poultry
Colorado’s outbreak of avian flu in poultry and dairy cattle seems to have died down, though the state continues to monitor farms for signs of the virus.
That doesn’t include regularly testing farms’ workers though — unless they have symptoms and their employers have a known outbreak.
Dairies have to bulk-test their milk at least once a week for H5N1, a flu virus that is particularly lethal to poultry and spilled over to cattle earlier this year.
Poultry farms that had to cull their animals because of infections also must test as they introduce new birds, in case they missed something while disinfecting.
Surveillance of people is far less regular, though.
‘Every Time the Planes Pass, My Eyes Burn’: The Hidden Cost of Costa Rican Bananas
For more than 20 years, Lidieth Gomez’s days have been punctuated by the hum of crop-spraying planes.
At dawn and dusk, the skies over Matina, capital of Limón province on Costa Rica’s Caribbean coast, are filled with aircraft spraying a viscous rain of agrochemicals on to banana plantations.
Gomez, a single mother of three, is one of 451 women participating in research by the Regional Institute for Studies of Toxic Substances (IRET) at the National University of Costa Rica.
For 14 years, this study on pesticide exposure has investigated how chemicals used on banana plantations affect thyroid health and fetal development in pregnant women.
“Every time the planes pass by, my eyes start to burn and my arms itch,” says Gomez.
Other common symptoms from coming into contact with pesticides include nausea, vomiting, dizziness, fainting, dermatitis and burning eyes.
Among the pesticides found in the blood of women and children, including Gomez, 51, and her son Daniel, 14, are chlorothalonil and mancozeb — two fungicides associated with potential carcinogenic effects — as well as chlorpyrifos, known for its neurotoxic effects on children, and neonicotinoids, a type of insecticide which can hinder neurological development.
Many of these agrochemicals are banned in Europe but continue to be produced and exported to countries such as Costa Rica, where they help to meet market demands for the kind of aesthetically perfect bananas sold worldwide.
Avian Flu First Found in Central Valley Is Spreading, With New California Cases Confirmed
State and federal officials have identified new cases of Avian influenza at three Central Valley dairies as the number of infected cows continues to climb in California.
The virus, known as Avian influenza or H5N1, has made its way across the U.S. since March, striking 14 states and infecting 200 dairy herds.
California announced the discovery of the virus on Aug. 30 after cows at three Central Valley dairies tested positive.
Once confirmed, the state placed the dairies under quarantine in an attempt to prevent the virus from spreading.
On its website, the U.S. Department of Agriculture identified eight livestock herds in California with confirmed cases of highly pathogenic avian influenza.
Scientists Create ‘Vaccine’ to Protect Bees From Pesticides
Pesticides used in agriculture are deadly to bees, who play a crucial role in pollinating plants and crops.
Now, scientists believe that they’ve managed to create a “vaccine” that can protect bees from these toxic chemicals.
Biologists from Cornell University in the U.S. created ingestible hydrogel microparticles. They fed them in sugar water to common eastern bumblebees who had been exposed to lethal and sublethal doses of imidacloprid, one of the neonicotinoid group of pesticides.
The bees exposed to the lethal dose had a 30% higher survival rate after ingesting the microparticles. Those exposed to the sublethal dose had improved appetites and physical activity.
Just one teaspoon of these pesticides can kill 1.25 billion honeybees and are deadly or harmful to many other pollinators and animals.
They impair bees’ nervous systems, causing paralysis and death. If the bees don’t die, neonicotinoids diminish their foraging abilities, brain functioning, and immune systems.
