Are We Poisoning Our Kids - Again?

Now here is a headline to get your attention: “Weed Killer in $289 Million Cancer Verdict Found in Oat Cereal and Granola Bars.” The story goes on to tell how EWG (Environmental Working Group) scientists found that almost three-fourths of their samples of oat products, including children’s cereals, contained glyphosate (the chemical in the weed killer, RoundUp) at levels higher than they consider “protective of children’s health with an adequate margin of safety.” 

This news came out last week and, in a fit of confirmation bias, social media picked it up and ran with it. It gave the food purists a chance to say, “I told you so,” while giving the environmental groups and natural news outlets a chance to scare parents with another threat to the health of their children.

Another website announced: “Kellogg's cereals found to be contaminated with Monsanto's cancer-causing glyphosate.” They went on to call the situation “horrific,” “health-destroying” and “shocking,” noting, “a research division of the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the ingredient as ‘probably carcinogenic to humans.’” 

In the face of this panic, NBC tried to be a calming influence in light of those “startling headlines” about RoundUp in cereals “swamping social media and scaring parents.” Their headline read: “A report by an environmental group disregards accepted evidence about safe levels of the chemical.” They point out that EWG has been waging an on-going campaign against the chemical and that the study making headlines “was not published in a peer-reviewed journal.” That means other scientists had no opportunity to review methods and findings before publication, checking that they followed valid scientific procedures and that their conclusions are trustworthy.

NBC goes on to remind readers that both the Environmental Protection Agency and the European Food Safety Authority have said glyphosate probably doesn’t cause cancer in humans and to remind them as well that jury rulings aren’t required to consider the scientific evidence and often don’t. Finally, it’s an accepted fact in toxicology that the dosage makes the poison – during the same week the media featured a story about how too much water can be harmful, and don't forget that too much sunlight also causes cancer.

WebMD does not deny the presence of the chemical but quotes toxicologists as saying, “a single serving of most of the foods [EWG] tested, eaten each day for a lifetime, would cause just one additional case of cancer in every million people.” The danger is extremely low and “definitely wouldn’t outweigh the health benefits of eating oats.” 

Many toxicologists argue that the WHO’s finding of “probably carcinogenic” is particularly cautious and leaves much room for doubt. But this opinion is a staple in any anti-RoundUp publication.

It’s important to note that these last two sources don’t have an ax to grind with Monsanto or its products, whereas the first two come into the discussion (and research) with an established bias. (It’s like inviting vegetarians to a bacon tasting event.) Furthermore the first was posted by the very group that ran the (not-peer-reviewed) tests and the second was posted almost three years ago (Thursday, September 10, 2015). They have been pushing this agenda for a long time.

Very little research and critical thinking can avert the panic. These stories will continue to crop up from time to time and are sure to spread now that so many people primarily get their news from dubious sources like FaceBook.

Most people don’t remember the headline: “Hazardous Chemical In Children’s Cereal.” About 18 months ago some were also outraged about chemicals in cereals our children eat. They wanted this carcinogen removed even though it is found in toothpaste, mouthwash, shampoo and cosmetics but has been declared safe by the FDA. It was not glyphosate; it was Trisodium Phosphate. The website said they had been warning about this danger for over 3 years.

When in doubt, they resurrect a scary story about poison cereal!

To Breakfast or Not To Breakfast?

That continues to be the question.  When I was growing up many years ago, we were told that breakfast was your most important meal.  The government still subscribes to this as many communities provide breakfast as well as lunch to qualifying students, subsidized with federal funds through the USDA’s School Breakfast Program (SBP).

It wasn’t too long ago that the news took the opposite view of breakfast.  Only 16 months ago I published the original To Breakfast or Not To Breakfast telling how breakfast had been declared optional based on a paper in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.  This opinion was backed up by an earlier (Summer 2014) study reported by the Huffington Post and USA Today.

The emphasis was on whether people who were skipping breakfast to lose weight were making a good decision.  They surmised that from a standpoint of weight loss, skipping might hold a slight benefit.  If you are hungrier at lunch and eat a little more, it will usually not be enough to offset all the calories missed from skipping breakfast.  So the net intake would be favorable.

But that stance was so 2017! The latest study is in and we are back to eating breakfast as a better solution.  (I originally saw the story on a TV health segment but these two sources are available on line here and here).

Researchers at the Mayo Clinic divided 347 healthy adults into three groups, those who never ate breakfast, those who ate infrequently (one to four times a week), and those who regularly ate breakfast (five to seven days a week).  Then they followed them for 12 years and found that the breakfast eaters ended up with “smaller waistlines and were less likely to be obese.”

But the really scary part of the report came next. The “people who ate breakfast regularly only gained about three pounds over the past year. People who ate breakfast occasionally put on five pounds, while people who skipped a morning meal entirely gained eight pounds and developed dangerous belly fat.”  (Since this was a 12-year study, it is unclear why they only reported on weight gain over the past year.)  In any case, notice that the breakfast eaters did better, but on average no single group lost weight!  Isn’t it interesting that success is now defined not as losing weight, but as not gaining as much as the other guy.

After reporting on the study, each of the news sources turned to their expert who dazzled readers with such earth-shattering observations as:  people should “stick to healthier foods in the morning [and]…avoid high density, sugar-filled foods.” They should also “consider how many nutritionally empty foods they eat during the day – and then cut those out.” (Not earth-shattering after all - just common sense.) This sounds more like the dimension of discipline than any magical link between breakfast and weight loss.

This whole breakfast question, like so many others in the health-research category, is like being on an amusement park ride with abrupt corners, twists and turns only to end up in the same place we started.  Of course, no one can explain why there would be a link between eating breakfast and weight loss, so the issue is still up in the air until the next study is published. 

This and That (2)

I.  In the grocery store the other day I saw 12-packs of cola selling for $3.33.  At the end of the aisle was a big sign announcing 24-packs of the same product for $7.68.  How much critical thinking does it take to figure out that two 12-packs is a much better deal - $6.66 vs. $7.68?  It’s like someone walking up and handing out dollar bills just for paying attention.

II.  Will the day come when no one has a vocabulary larger than 20,000 words, because all other words have been declared by someone or other to be hurtful or offensive?  We will run out of letter-words and have to double up - the N-word, the F-word, the B2-word, the C23-word, etc.

III.  A question that seems to be coming up more frequently:  Is any particular website (or Facebook posting) real, a parody or someone’s idea of a joke?  It’s getting harder and harder to tell them apart.

IV.  Has the news media deteriorated because of the American need to be entertained?  We will no longer stand for the talking heads, so they send reporters to the scene of an incident long after everyone else has moved on, having them stand out in the weather (sometimes in the dark) to tell us about the shooting or collision that happened hours ago.  To keep us from turning back to our smartphones, they must show us more non-news just to keep things everyone interested, to elicit amusement or outrage:  cute pets or wildlife, what’s “trending,” (usually dire) predictions of the future, opinions of non-experts like "the man on the street” or their media colleagues.  Based on what they deliver, I no longer believe they deserve to be referred to as journalists.  Many just do Google searches, pass along press releases, publish leaks, tell us their opinion of celebrity or political Tweets or send cameras to public or weather events.  As one friend put it, “If we could only harness the energy of Walter Cronkite spinning in his grave, our problems would be solved!”

V.  Breakfast is back, rising like a phoenix.  This study reported in an August 17, 2017 article finds that children who skipped breakfast “were missing out on key nutrients which impacted their productivity throughout the day.”  Researchers discovered this after studying the habits and performance of 802 children.

Why the phoenix analogy?  Years ago breakfast was “your most important meal.” As indicated above, it got you off to a good start.  But recently this has been the subject of debate rather than accepted wisdom.  About 6 years ago people began calling it a myth, as here where they come right out and say breakfast is not important.  Others hopped on board the myth bandwagon.  The controversy centered around whether skipping breakfast was good or bad for weight control rather than its effect on overall health or performance.  A 2014 CBS report recommends eating breakfast because previous studies gave conflicting advice, “with some suggesting that eating breakfast can help people lose weight and others finding the opposite.”  This continued conflicting advice is clear from a 2015 headline reading:  “New Study Shows No Signs That Skipping Breakfast Will Make You Gain Weight.”  But an earlier CBS report said it would.

As of today breakfast is good for children, and another study last January said that “skipping breakfast or eating late in the day could raise the risk of heart disease, diabetes, and obesity.”  Perhaps the phoenix comparison was a bad one and a ping pong ball is more appropriate.  What’s a mother (or a dieter) to do?!  Pick a side and you can find a study to back you up.

Bogus Warnings

They may come in the form of spam e-mails or desperate pleas on social media, but the bogus warnings are out there.  The people who send them seem to be sincere in their concern.  The people who forward them seem to be lax in their interest to do a little simple research to determine their veracity (Critical Thinking).  But there seems to be no shortage of warnings about avoiding certain foods to ensure our future good health.  Maybe everyone wants to perform a heroic act saving their friends and the population in general, but the result is really a bunch of Chicken Littles crying, “The sky is falling,” and distracting everyone from actual serious concerns.

One example comes by way of social media from a site called Healthy Holistic Living.  The article is undated, but was picked up by a number of other sites in August 2014.  The headline, “The Noodles that Cause Chronic Inflammation, Weight Gain, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease,” is a real attention grabber.

It tells of a “first-of-its-kind experiment” by a doctor at Massachusetts General Hospital who “used a pill-sized camera to see what happens inside your stomach and digestive tract after you eat ramen noodles, one common type of instant noodles.”  He found that “even after two hours, they are remarkably intact” which may put a strain on your digestive system.

But wait, there’s more.  They also contain poison!  The noodles contain TBHQ, “a synthetic chemical with antioxidant properties – not a natural antioxidant.”  It’s a commonly used ingredient in processed foods of all kinds but is also used in lacquers, perfumes, varnishes and pesticides.  They go on to warn of a bunch of possible nasty outcomes from eating any non-homemade instant noodles.

This seems very bad on the surface. Has the FDA dropped the ball and the only ones who care about it are the healthy-holistic-living people?  From the rest of the article, the bias becomes clear.  To them all processed foods are bad and potentially poisonous.  This experiment from Mass General just reinforces that view.  So they took that information and combined it with a study from South Korea, where they eat a lot of ramen noodles, showing some adverse health effects.  They published their conclusion linking the noodles to high blood pressure, high blood sugar levels, increased risk of heart disease, stroke and diabetes.

The problem is that the South Korea study relied on self-reporting, results have not been reproduced and instant noodles haven't been isolated as a single factor in adverse health outcomes.  The study itself says findings are not necessarily applicable to subjects outside that country.

This rumor apparently was resurrected by NextShark website, published in July 2016 attributing the South Korea study to Harvard (to try to add some credibility).  An old, non-scary study was rebranded to get attention or confirm an agenda.

A similar scary rumor had to do with Trisodium phosphate (TSP) in children’s breakfast cereals.  Although it can be used in high concentrations for cleaning walls before painting, it is "generally recognized as safe" by the FDA and is also approved for use by food safety standards agencies in the European Union.  It is not a paint thinner, solvent or acetone as the author would have us believe.  It’s probably safer for the children than all the sugar found in those cereals.

I guess two good questions come from this.  Shouldn’t we do some research before panicking and reposting these continual rumors?  Are we going to trust the FDA with the mission of keeping us safe from dangerous foods, some painter who noticed similarities with his work on cereal box ingredients list, or a website with a specific agenda of disparaging all processed foods?  The FDA does make a few mistakes, but I think they are much more reliable over the long run.  It’s a matter of critical thinking and a little perspective – calm down, get a grip and investigate before spreading bogus warnings.

Responsibility - Don't Blame the Cereal

A few days ago I was flipping through the channels on Saturday morning to see if anyone had a local weather forecast instead of cartoons.  I found CBS Morning Show with 4 people sitting around the table talking about breakfast cereals.  (I think this was a filler segment when some stations break away for local news and weather, but I paused to watch.)  They showed four boxes of sweet cereal and were discussing how you have to be careful to read the labels for ingredients and nutritional information because these cereals are packed with sugar and other bad things - "like carbs" (?). 

Then they started asking each other what they ate for breakfast when they were kids.  The answers included many of these same cereals.  The only change was that the cereals used to have “sugar” in the name.  Since then the companies dropped sugar from the name, but still add lots of it.

Think about it.  Four healthy, grown people grew up eating these cereals regularly for breakfast, the ones they were warning us about just minutes earlier.  They were not overweight and their teeth did not seem to be falling out.  They had good jobs on TV.  Somehow they survived the dreaded sugary breakfasts but felt perfectly justified in warning everyone else about the dangers.  Do they think we are not as smart as they are, that we can't figure it out like they did, that they did OK, but our children are doomed?  Why do we try to blame cereals (and a host of other products, big corporations and the government) for consequences we can control through our own behavior?  This behavior is the opposite of responsibility.