Bring Home the Biotech Bacon 216
Wired is reporting that researchers may have found the key to "heart friendly bacon." From the article: "Geneticists have mixed DNA from the roundworm C. elegans and pigs to produce swine with significant amounts of omega-3 fatty acids -- the kind believed to stave off heart disease. Researchers hope they can improve the technique in pork and do the same in chickens and cows. In the process, they also want to better understand human disease."
Fatty (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Fatty (Score:3, Funny)
But if that's the case, you could market it as a weight-loss program too!
Re:Fatty (Score:2)
Re:Fatty (Score:2)
Wild salmon as most oceanic top predators accumulates all the flame retardants, dioxins, etc we dump in the Arctic nowdays. I would seriously think twice before eating it unless it is from the North Pacific. Same for any Arctic and North Atlantic fish.
Farmed salmon is not much better either. It is stuffed with antibiotics and has dioxin levels way above what should be considered normal.
If you want to eat non-carcinogenic and antibiotic free omega-rich fish eat white trout (in Russian "Sig") which is
Re:Fatty (Score:2)
There's nothing wrong with some ham or pork tenderloin having some of the good stuff in it too, since occasionally I'll eat the other white meat.
Try Mahi Mahi (Score:2)
Re:Fatty (Score:3, Insightful)
Which is exactly why I've been saying the next step should be to genetically engineer a pig with multiple stomachs so it can chew it's cud. Mmmm...kosher bacon.
Re:Fatty (Score:2)
Then cook it (the meat, not the tapeworm. Then again, cooked tapeworm should make for a pretty good source of protein).
Re:Fatty (Score:2)
sigh... apparently, this is one of those government and business promulgated myths that is going to take years to undo, if even undoable. There are a ton of "scientists" out there who are emotionally and economically dependent on the current established "truth". Bad science is killing us all. But, here's the pointer. Read it.
Study Finds Low-Fat Diet Won't Stop Cancer or Heart Disease [nytimes.com]
Returning natural amounts of fat to our diet is essential for getting our weight back under control. As we've reduced o
Re:Fatty (Score:2)
Both trichinosis and tapeworm are now extremely rare in commercial hogs, which is why many restaurants will serve pork at a 'medium' doneness if asked.
Even if you purchase meat from an infected hog, cooking thoroughly will prevent infection by parasites.
Not that I'd advocate eating pork sushi, but pork is much safer than people believe.
Re:Fatty (Score:2)
Two out of three ain't bad. Definately healthier, and doesn't violate the rules of any sane religion but it doesn't taste as good.
I'd go there with you on turkey ham. But real bacon is in a class all by itself.
LK
Re:It's a good thing... (Score:2)
Re:It's a good thing... (Score:2)
Risks? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Risks? (Score:5, Insightful)
Know any smokers?
I'd rather risk the low-chance unknown (Score:2)
Sounds like a rabbit's foot (Score:5, Funny)
Vincent: Want some bacon?
Jules: No man, I don't eat pork.
Vincent: Are you Jewish?
Jules: Nah, I ain't Jewish, I just don't dig on swine, that's all.
Vincent: Why not?
Jules: Pigs are filthy animals. I don't eat filthy animals.
Vincent: Bacon tastes gooood. Pork chops taste gooood.
Jules: Hey, sewer rat may taste like pumpkin pie, but I'd never know 'cause I wouldn't eat the filthy motherfucker. Pigs sleep and root in shit. That's a filthy animal. I ain't eat nothin' that ain't got enough sense enough to disregard its own faeces.
Vincent: How about a dog? Dogs eats its own feces.
Jules: I don't eat dog either.
Vincent: Yeah, but do you consider a dog to be a filthy animal?
Jules: I wouldn't go so far as to call a dog filthy but they're definitely dirty. But, a dog's got personality. Personality goes a long way.
Vincent: Ah, so by that rationale, if a pig had a better personality, he would cease to be a filthy animal. Is that true?
Jules: Well we'd have to be talkin' about one charmin' motherfuckin' pig. I mean he'd have to be ten times more charmin' than that Arnold on Green Acres, you know what I'm sayin'?
Re:Sounds like a rabbit's foot (Score:5, Insightful)
I really can't let this one go by.
"Pigs sleep and root in shit. That's a filthy animal."
No. When humans are confined without the means to stay clean (think gaol) they too sleep in shit. Does that make humans filthy animals? Clearly not. Equally clearly, when pigs live out in the wild they shun excrement just like you and I do.
"I wouldn't go so far as to call a dog filthy but they're definitely dirty."
No. A dog is merely doing what other animals do with a food which is difficult to digest: they re-digest it. Cattle do the same; but they don't have to shit it out first because they have multiple stomachs. It's called 'cud'. Do you drink milk? Do you eat butter and cheese?
If freshly dropped shit was harmful, you'd be ill already, wouldn't you? Please remember that your own, personal, filthy shit just came out of the middle of your nicely-clean-on-the-outside body. You and I are both literally full of shit.
Special thought for the day just for you: "I am glad and grateful to be full of shit."
Thanks for your time.
Re:Sounds like a rabbit's foot (Score:2)
No, they are disgusting.
Re:Sounds like a rabbit's foot (Score:2)
Freshly dropped human shit is in fact pretty bad for you.
All your other points are spot on.
Do you want to cleanse yourself? (Score:2)
Go home from work 24 hours ahead, and take your Fleet's Phospho-Soda. Then enjoy jello, Gatorade, etc for the next 24 hours, but NEVER let yourself get very far from the toilet. You'll get cleaned out.
Then go into Ambulatory Care for the Grand Finale.
However, there quite a bit of peace of mind in being told, "Everything looks good, come back in 8 to 10 years."
Re:Sounds like a rabbit's foot (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Sounds like a rabbit's foot (Score:2)
And for your piece of mind, I seriously suggest that you don't look that one up in the dictionary.
Doh ! (Score:5, Informative)
As they say in the marketing rulebook: Timing is everything
Re:Doh ! (Score:2)
They're still marketing it as 'super brain food' based on one study that found if you fed children decent food in the morning instead of crap they did slightly better at school.
If you were to believe the marketing the only thing this stuff doesn't do is raise the dead... and I suspect they're working on that.
Re:Doh ! (Score:2)
Regardless, it's still true that the average diet in countries like the US is lacking in O-3 fatty acids, and that there are other health problems that can result
Re:Doh ! (Score:2)
Then you don't have to kill anything or mutate the poor fuckers.
> In the process, they also want to better understand human disease.
So they can invent more pointless "hey it's got chemical X in it" foods when all it takes is a balanced diet and not "new Health Coke".
Re:Doh ! (Score:2)
All that said there seems to be a growing view (and one that seems reasonable to me) that suggests that taking the apparently beneficial component of a food in isolation may simply not work. In this context eating Omega-3 when it occurs in Oil
Instead of bacon... (Score:3, Funny)
We get bacon with worms?
I think someone didn't run this by marketing.
Re:Instead of bacon... (Score:2)
the kind believed to stave off heart disease (Score:5, Informative)
Er...no it's not:
http://society.guardian.co.uk/health/story/0,,173
Re:the kind believed to stave off heart disease (Score:2)
The pattern I usually see in these studies is that after controlling for and isolating a particular dietary component, they find it has no benefit, and that the orig
Re:the kind believed to stave off heart disease (Score:2)
As for our family, we tried to eat a varied diet, keep up with the 5 servings of fruits/vegetables a day, and get exercise. We also cook mostly from scratch, so most of what we eat has 3 or fewer syllables.
None of us are fat, and we're all pretty healthy.
My byline for nutrition (Score:2)
And incidentally, they're already back to saying that eggs are good for you...
I too find the flip-flopping of nutrition to be vexing. Myself, I manage by eating whatever I'm craving and I try to eat in large quantities and with variety. *wry grin* That said, I only pull off the large quantities because my family has a metabolism more in line for a mongoose, but eh...
I'm a personal believer in that if you eat what yo
Re:the kind believed to stave off heart disease (Score:2, Insightful)
And, repeat after me: Correlation is not causation.
The most obvious difference to me between Greek and Inuit cultures (the
Doubt on Omega-3 benefits (Score:2, Informative)
good for us (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:good for us (Score:3, Insightful)
You're going to get a million people replying to you saying variations of "what does it matter? The pig is going to die"
It's a question that society has to start thinking about - many people (like the parent poster) have no problem eating meat, but are concerned about the life of the animal prior to it being butchured.
Its a valid concern, and not hypocritical at all - there's an enormous gap betwe
Re:good for us (Score:2)
Re:good for us (Score:2)
Living to be slaughtered (Score:2)
Anybody else flashing back to the Dish of the Day [wikipedia.org] from HHGttG?
Re:good for us (Score:3, Informative)
In other words, welcome
Wait 20 years (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Wait 20 years (Score:2)
Trade-offs (Score:5, Insightful)
You can devote a silly amount of time trying to eat an optimal, low-calorie, lowfat, high-protein, perfectly-whatever sort of diet.
What does that gain you? Is all that time and energy worth it, when, if you get it right, you'll probably just die of something else instead? Sheesh, live a little. Have some bacon once in awhile, have some ice cream for dessert now and then. If you eat too much of something, your body will let you know anyway.
Respect your body's intuition, and get some exercise. There's millions of years of research to back that up.
Re:Trade-offs (Score:2)
Re:Trade-offs (Score:2)
"Eating for pleasure"? If you eat a quart
Re:Trade-offs (Score:2)
I won't drink caffeine. That doesn't mean scientists were wasting their time for making caffeine free sodas like Sprite. If my only choice was cola or water, I would choose water. If given the between traditional red meat, and red meat whose fat content was replaced with Omega-3 fatty acids, I would choose the latter. Healt
Re:Trade-offs (Score:3, Insightful)
It's amusing to observe what was considered healthy throughout history. "Drinking donkey urine/bathing in virgin blood will grant you eternal youth!", "High-fiber diet reduces colon cancer risk!"
One of the recent ones was sent to me by a dentist friend - a radioactive toothpaste (1940ies):
http://www.orau.org/ptp/collection/quackcures/toot hpaste.htm [orau.org]
From the advertisment sample that I have:
"RADIOACTIVE TOOTHPASTE - CREATES NATURAL FRESHNESS"
"Gentle rays of Radium are active for 4 hours after applicat
Re:Trade-offs (Score:2)
The problem is that those millions of years were in another environment - we didn't use to live in the enormous year round abundance of food we have now.
Our body's intuition says to stock up on fat for the harsh times, it says sweet = always good, fat = always good. Eat the food you can get before the next famine strikes.
We know what the ideal diet is - eat with the season, in tremendous variety, use meats in moderation, eat lots of fruit and vegetables, prefer wholewheat grains over processed flour, vege
Re:Trade-offs (Score:2)
And eating what I am evolved to eat isn't an option: I'm evolved to eat a mixture of things that grow up in a totally mixed environment (no farming, other types of plants next to it), nuts, occasionally game, occasionally fish.
The trouble is that the earth can only support about 100 million people living this way. Which 98% do we kill off?
Eivind.
diets were optimized for us (Score:2)
Healthy fat and marketing (Score:2)
I mean, let's face it, considering the average person in so called "developed countries", there's no such thing as healthy fat. We simply eat too much of it, no matter how healty it is. You can create "high fructose" stuff as much as you like, it still is sugar. Yes, probably better than "ordinary" beet sugar, but still sugar.
Same with Omega-3 fat. It's not like you get more healthy by eating more of it. Yeah, it's better than eating that saturated grease, b
Re:Healthy fat and marketing (Score:2)
high fructose corn syrup [wikipedia.org] is markedly worse for you than any natural sugar. The main reason HFCS exists is that it's cheaper than real sugar and it doesn't spoil as fast.
Yes, we need fat in our diet, of course, but it's similar to salt in our diet: In "modern" food, you simply cannot eat too little of it, no matter what you do.
Essential Fatty Acids are called that bec
Re:Healthy fat and marketing (Score:2)
I was also not refering to hfcs, but currently here the marketing goons of various kid food chains are riding the "full of healthy fructose" fad. Which makes me cringe every time I hear it. Fructose is still sugar.
And O3FS fat is still fat. Yes, it is essential (so is fat, actually), but we already eat far more than enough of the stuff. Yes, we need HDL, but just pumping more of it into you won
Re:Healthy fat and marketing (Score:2)
I've seen newbies on bodybuilding boards who
Re:Healthy fat and marketing (Score:2)
Re:Healthy fat and marketing (Score:2)
I would definitely have to argue with this. In the 90s, when Low Fat was the craze instead of Low Carb, there were plenty of women who were not getting enough fat in their diets. You could get fat-free versions of just about everything, just like you can get low-carb versions now.
The difference is, in most low-carb breads, pastas, etc, the starches and sugars are replaced by fiber or protein, both of which are at least usefu
Just PLEASE don't take the "old" bacon away (Score:3)
Maize (Score:2)
Boneless chickens (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Boneless chickens (Score:2)
http://www.bundlings.com/rich/boneless.jpg [bundlings.com]
Body Image - Hollywood (Score:2)
It is all about the breasts! I mean, have you seen the breasts on these chickens!?! I know we raised chickens when I was young, but none of them were these "Dolly Parton Big Boob" chickens you see now.
You know these chickens can't run, hell I wonder how they can even walk with those huge breast!
No Clear Evidence Omega 3 Fatty Acids Beneficial (Score:2)
Omega 3 might not be a lifesaver [icnetwork.co.uk]
Mar 24 2006
Madeleine Brindley, Western Mail
SCIENTISTS have cast doubt on whether fish oils can really help protect against heart disease.
It's interesting that they're using genes from C. elegans [wikipedia.org] which along with the fruit fly, yeast and the mouse make up some of the most throughly studied organisms. I wonder if it's a case of looking for the lost keys u
For HEART DISEASE, probably thanks to mercury. (Score:2)
*BZZZZTTT* This is only for heart disease and is slightly inconclusive.
From the aritcle itself:
Despite the findings, leading dieticians said the public should not stop eating oily fish as omega 3 is associated with a huge range of health benefits.
It also states that:
More research is needed to establish why some studies have shown a slightly increased risk associated with eating very high amo
And how is the taste ? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:And how is the taste ? (Score:2)
Clean food is good for you (Score:3, Interesting)
Far too much is made of these improvements, if they are in fact improvements.
My grandfather lived to be 92, and died 2 days after playing and dancing to fiddle at a wedding. After having 2 wives and 15 children it is not hard to see why he had a large farm. Being monetarily poor, everything was used and everything made from the farm and without chemicals or bio agents. He was a mixed farmer raising cattle, pigs, chickens and wheat.
Well, to the point. None of the food, including eggs fried in suet every day, or the grease from the cattle or pig lard in bread, pastries or what amounts to steak-fried chicken ever hurt him. By modern days standards he should have died at 22 of a massive heart attack due to cholesterol alone.
But one truth appears to be the chemicals, the bio "enhancements" and engineering of foods is what is killing many of us. Growth hormones get passed on through the food chain and tell our bodies to "put it on". Radiation sterilizes but also kills proteins we need and thus we eat more. Nitrate preservatives... The pesticide residues in steady feed but minute ("government accepted levels") linger and pass regularly down the food chain to humans. Who knows, your cow might have been grazed down wind of a chemical processing plant or drank water downstream from another city or chemical use agro farm with god knows what in it.
It isn't just in livestock like chickens, pork and cattle. Seafood caught after rivers carry out taconite, lead, cadmium, chromium, mercury and a host of other impurities. The shrimp from Thailand to the Cod of the shores of Newfoundland all have similar issues.
When it comes to tinkering about the food chain, we might want to concern ourselves about a species like the Leopard Frog that is sensitive to mans pollution and bio agents. There used to be lots of them, but haven't seen one for 20 years and I have looked. Never saw tumors in fish until the last 5 years either.
Finding clean food is increasing becoming a problem. The problem is there are few places to grow clean food.
Re:Clean food is good for you (Score:2)
People in the past century lived pretty long because they used primarily organic farming (didn't have non-organic methods yet) and also had more physically active jobs.
I wonder how the life span of baby-boomers and gen Xers will be comparitively. I mean, we are more likely to have desk jobs, and our food just has lots of processed crap, like unsaturated fats, hydrogenated oils, high-fructose corn syrup, remnants of growth enzymes from meat and dairy, etc. And we
Re:Clean food is good for you (Score:2)
Plastics are probably a lot better for us than bare metal, after all, you're not going to get traces of aluminium along with your food (aluminium is a cause of Altzheimer's).
The evidence shows that progress is pu
Re:Clean food is good for you (Score:2)
Your digestive system does a good job of "killing" proteins you eat. What, you think you absorb whole proteins from your meal and they magically start doing their thing?
polyunsaturated fatty acids (Score:2)
They would need to make pork meat with long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids. That would be nice and healthy. Problem though: I doubt a pig can live consisting of fats that are usually mostly found in plants and vegetable oil. Would that pig have green color?
Wild Game Meat (Score:2)
The best natural sources of Omega-3 fatty acids are in fish. A lesser known fact is that wild game animals have a lot of polyunsaturated fat in their meat and are actually good sources of Omega-3 fatty acids as well. There are lots of mammals with polyunsaturated fats in their bodies just as there are plants with saturated fats in their seeds. It's not purely an animal/plant divide as a lot
Let me be the first to say it... (Score:2)
And to all you vegetarians out there, until they make a plant that tastes like bacon, I'm not switching. If God didn't want us to eat animals then why did he cover them in meat?
Re:Let me be the first to say it... (Score:2)
(or for
Mmmmmm (Score:2)
pig in a jar (Score:2)
Animal rights whacko prespective (Score:2)
I could go on, but no one will listen anyway.
Tuna Club (Score:2)
What does bacon fried in fish oil taste like?
Is bioengineered stuff kosher/halal? (Score:2)
I think they are putting worm genes in pork. Now the answer to that one is easy.
Re:What about the animals? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:What about the animals? (Score:2)
Re:What about the animals? (Score:5, Insightful)
Looking at the poultry industry [ciwf.org.uk] (pdf warning) I'd say, any effects to the Pig's wellbeing (good or bad) will be irrelevant to the agribusiness owners & the vast majority of consumers.
Quite sad - I have no problem with people eating meat, but knowingly choosing to eat something that's the end result of a life of torture is shocking.
Re:How about NOT bringing home the bacon... (Score:2, Insightful)
Define bad. Where do you think sugar comes from? I'll give you a hint, it's not from pigs. Avocado's are also fairly fatty. Many fruits eaten to excess can cause diarrhea. Vegetarians, especially women, need to be very careful of what they eat to ensure they get needed vitamins and trace elements commonly found in meat - like iron.
We would certainly be able to feed more people w
what planet are you from? (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm surprised that someone can be so wrong. Meat takes very roughly ten times the energy to produce than vegetables. Livestock have to eat plants to survive. Mostly, they are fed low-cost-high-yield plants like maize, soy, and castor bean, and various animal wastes, but livestock still require a great deal of land. You think
Re:what planet are you from? (Score:2)
Now granted, as I understand a lot of modern animal farming, you simply box the animal in and
Re:what planet are you from? (Score:2)
Sheep also simultaneously produce wool for clothing (which I dare say has less environmental impact than making synthetic wool).
Re:How about NOT bringing home the bacon... (Score:2)
It's pretty well established that feeding veggies to animals and then eating their meat is a very inefficient use of energy. I'm quite certain that you can feed more people off an acre of beans and ric
Re:How about NOT bringing home the bacon... (Score:2)
Obligatory, Beaten-to-Death SImpsons Quote (Score:2)
"Lisa, in this house, we obey the laws of thermodynamics!"
I'm no PETA freak, but what do you think we feed animals? For the most part, we feed them the same kind of grain that we eat (like corn and soy) or parts of other food that we don't eat. (Look up silage some time.) Even grass fed animals eat up far, far more calories
Re:How about NOT bringing home the bacon... (Score:2)
And the whole supermarket thing is only recent; at least here in Australia. My grandparents can still remember their parents butchering chickens at home. We're the first generation in a while who've had qualms about consuming meat in any serious numbers - and we're the ones most removed
Re:How about NOT bringing home the bacon... (Score:2)
I'm an Omnivore [reference.com], bitch.
etc. etc. for all the animals murdered in the name of cuisine.
It's not possible to murder food.
LK
Re:How about NOT bringing home the bacon... (Score:2, Interesting)
Because of how the Internet works the only way we can tell how you mean stuff is how you write it -- caps is generally regarded as shouting, and 1337 conveys a stereotype, as does aimspeek. Similarly, using multiple punctuation marks leads to other stereotypes.
I saw a rule of thumb for exclamation points once -- you should only use as many
Re:How about NOT bringing home the bacon... (Score:2)
Do you mean those pesticide sprayed berries in February? (North America) Or Monsanto Fries, or is it Dow green beans? Half my teeth are for meat, half are for vegies. Thats how I eat. And yes, I know meat has the same issues as vegies. But until we decide to grow food naturally I will have to live with the fact that the "all beef" steroid antibiotic burger will have to do.
Re:How about NOT bringing home the bacon... (Score:2)
Incidentally, most pesticides accumulate in the fat
Re:Don't play with your food (Score:2)
Buy your organic free-range beef if you like, I care not. Just don't suggest that we should all have to pay for organic free-range beef.
(This is in the sake of argument, as I do not eat beef much at all. I'm instead saddened by having to ration my fish intake, where there is seemingly no recourse in buying "organic fish")
Re:Pork... (Score:2)
Re:Pork... (Score:2)
Re:Dune (Score:2)
Re:22 Slices of Bacon Later... (Score:2)
Wait. You mean you have a more ultimate bacon sandwich? Do share!