Quick Reality Check Articles

September 17, 2009

QRC – Cooking beef, chicken, pork or fish can significantly increase risk of cancer

Filed under: Food, Health, Quick Reality Check — Tags: , , , , , — Administrator @ 23:30

* Research has shown that some methods of cooking muscle meats such as beef, pork, chicken, and fish can form carcinogens (chemicals which may cause cancer) such as heterocyclic amines (HCAs).

BBQed meat

* HCAs form when amino acids in proteins chemically react combine with creatine in muscles at high cooking temperatures.

* Studies have shown that an increased risk of developing colorectal, pancreatic, and breast cancer is associated with high intakes of well-done, fried, or barbequed meats and HCAs may be the reason.

* Researchers at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) as well as by Japanese and European scientists have identified 17 different HCAs resulting from the cooking of muscle meats that may pose human cancer risk.

* Various studies have found that people who ate their beef medium-well or well had a three times higher incidence of stomach cancer than those who ate rare or medium rare beef.

* Frying, broiling, and barbecuing produce the largest amounts of HCAs because meat cooks at very high temperatures.

* Research has found that cooking at 250°C versus 200°C (482°F versus 392°F) increases HCA formation by 300%.

* Oven roasting and baking typically done below 150°C form much lower levels of HCAs however, gravy made from meat drippings does contain substantial amounts of HCAs.

* Stewing, boiling, or poaching are done at or below 100°C (212°F) produces negligible amounts of HCAs.

* Foods cooked a long time (“well-done” instead of “medium”) by other methods will also form slightly more of the chemicals.

* Partially cooking meats in the microwave oven before flame grilling or barbecuing will reduce the amounts of HCAs and helps to decrease mutagens by destroying precursors.

* If you microwave defrosted meats for at least 2-3 minutes at full power prior to cooking them, you can reduce HCA formation by up to 90 percent, and even more if you pour off the juices formed during microwaving prior to further cooking.

* Do not eat gravy made from meat drippings. Many simple recipes exist to make “gravy” such as caramelizing some onions in olive oil, adding some nice mushrooms, and then adding water and boiling the mixture to form a gravy. Starch can be added to thicken if desired. This type of gravy will not contain HCAs.

September 14, 2009

Quick Reality Check – Water Hidden in the food you Eat

Filed under: Food, Quick Reality Check — Tags: , , — Administrator @ 23:55

* The average water use per person in North America for personal hygiene and cooking is about 100 gallons per day.

* The most significant water use by each person each day is the water used to grow their food!!

* One pound of Potatoes uses 60 gallons to grow and provides 422 calories;

* One pound of Wheat uses 108 gallons of water to grow and provides 518 calories;

* One pound of Corn uses 168 gallons of water to grow and provides 428 calories;

* One pound Rice uses 229 gallons of water to grow and provides 596 calories;

* One pound of Soybeans use 240 gallons of water to grow and provides 786 calories.

* One pound of Beef uses 2,500 gallons of water to grow and provides only 1,210 calories.

* Obviously, eating grains and cereals directly rather than eating meat can reduce the “hidden” water use of our society by over 90% !!

Quick Reality Check – The Rice, Wheat, Corn and Oil – the real axis of evil

Filed under: Food, Quick Reality Check — Tags: , , , , , , , — Administrator @ 00:07

* Rice, Wheat and Corn have been the dominant agricultural crops for over 10,000 years.

* Rice, Wheat, and Corn convert solar energy into a dense carbohydrate bundles which can easily be stored or transported for future use.

* Rice, Wheat, and Corn therefore represent an accumulation of wealth and are more than just “food”.

* Historically, there were two forms of sustainable farming.

* One form of sustainable farming was practiced around rivers where annual “floods” would scour the land and leave behind nutrient rich flood planes where wheat, corn and rice can thrive. This can be a sustainable practice however, many flood planes are now covered with cities and are no longer available for growing food.

* Another form of sustainable agriculture involved a rotation of crops and could be used everywhere. Some years wheat or corn would be grown. Other years crops which add nitrogen to the soil would be grown while in other years specific crops would be planted and plowed back into the ground to maintain the fertility of the soil.

* Today, we plant the same crops in the same fields each year and we use about 5.5 gallons of fossil energy to “restore” fertility to an acre land. This means that every year we are using about 400 to 500 years worth of “solar energy” in the form of hydrocarbons to maintain our “unsustainable society” also termed “catastrophic agriculture” by some scientists and historians.

* It is true that sustainable agriculture requires more labor and is not as “productive” per acre but if we considered a more “balanced” diet containing 75% less meat, we could sustain ourselves and our society.

* We must eat more foods in their natural “unprocessed” form in order to maintain our health and to ensure that we can feed future generations.

* Our modern farming practices have eliminated our “arable land”. Every single calorie we eat is backed by at least a calorie of oil, more like ten. In 1940 the average farm in the United States produced 2.3 calories of food energy for every calorie of fossil energy it used. By 1974, the last year in which anyone looked closely at this issue, that ratio was 1:1 and it understates the problem.

* The problem of finding and recovering oil is an ever increasing problem as well. In the 1940s we would use the energy from one barrel of oil to gather 100 barrels. Today, we must spend the energy of one barrel of oil to recover only ten barrels of oil, and this number is constantly being reduced.

* We currently devote about 82% of farm land to corn and grain which is “manufactured” into foods which creates huge profits for the “manufacturers” but not for farmers.

* In addition to the direct social and environmental costs, scientist have proven that “manufactured” foods are unhealthy because of the high levels of salt, fat and preservatives which they contain and are therefore fueling our health care crisis and epidemic levels of cancer, diabetes, and heart disease and contribute to our “overweight” society.

* Corn, wheat and rice are themselves not evil. Our society has allowed corporations to use these grains plus inexpensive oil to create an unsustainable “false economy” which is polluting our environment, destroying biodiversity, and damaging the health of individuals.

* Omachron’s scientific team is working on developing sustainable farming methods which operate entirely within the solar energy available in a year because the time for action is NOW while we have some oil reserves that we can use to build a sustainable infrastructure before it is too late.

September 12, 2009

QRC – Some consequences of seeds and the poisons that they are immune to – the cause of future famine

Filed under: Food, Quick Reality Check — Tags: , , , , , , — Administrator @ 22:11

* Historically, farmers in different regions of the country grew different species of the same crop therefore wheat or potatoes or corn grown in different areas would be genetically different. This crop diversity is the variance in genetic and phenotypic characteristics of plants grown by different farmers. For instance, different types of corn may differ in their seed size, branching pattern, height, flower color, fruiting time, or flavor and most importantly they will vary in terms of their response to heat, cold or drought, or their ability to resist specific diseases and pests.

A corn field in Liechtenstein
A corn field in Liechtenstein

* In the past, humans have cultivated thousands of plant species for food whereas we now rely on less than a dozen species for 80% of our food needs.

* Even within these dozen species, genetic diversity is being purposefully eliminated by the sale of genetically modified seeds along with the pesticides and herbicides that they are immune to.

* It seems that if current trends persist as many as half of all plant species could face extinction in the next decade. The Irish potato famine has already shown us the risks of relying on a single crop as a primary food source yet we are potentially setting ourselves up for a similar problem again.

* Large companies now sell and promote genetically modified seeds which are resistant to herbicides and pesticides. This effectively creates a “mono-culture” where there is no genetic diversity between the crops grown in different places. This means that if a disease arises which the current “mono-culture” species are not resistant to, this disease could potentially wipe out an entire crop year of corn or wheat or sugar beets with devastating consequences for society.

* In the past herbicide use had to be done carefully because herbicides could damage or kill the crop as well as the unwanted weeds. The genetically modified crops are immune to the effects of the herbicides and/or pesticides and can therefore be sprayed with them more often to produce larger yields. The problems with the increased use of herbicides/pesticides is that these materials are now found at elevated levels in the food that we eat.

* I believe that we cannot scientifically ensure that the levels of pesticides and herbicides in in the food we eat are not a health risk.

* The loss of biodiversity is considered one of today’s most serious environmental concerns.

* The wise use of crop genetic diversity in plant breeding can contribute significantly to protecting the environment. Crop varieties that are resistant to pests and diseases can reduce the need for application of harmful pesticides because more vigorous varieties can better compete with weeds.

* Drought resistant plants can help save water through reducing the need for irrigation.

* Deeper rooting varieties can help stabilize soils.

* Varieties that are more efficient in their use of nutrients require less fertilizer.

* Most importantly, perhaps, productive agricultural systems reduce or eliminate the need to cut down forest or clear fragile lands to create more farmland for food production.

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P. S. My family and I are now growing about 50% of the fruits and vegetables we eat and we are cultivating 15 species this year. We plan to grow 100% of the food needs next year, we plan to cultivate 60+ species. We have developed new advanced hydroponics and efficient LED lighting systems and other technologies to enable cost effective, environmentally sustainable means of growing plants year round in small spaces even in colder climates such as where we live – near Toronto Canada.

September 10, 2009

QRC – Livestock – The Hidden Polluters & The Real Costs of Eating Beef

Filed under: Food, Health, Quick Reality Check — Tags: , , , , , , — Administrator @ 22:55

- Wheat yields are typically 1,800 to 3,000 lbs per acre and requires a rainfall of 150 to 300 gallons per pound of grain produced.

- Many of the poorest people on earth rely on grains as their primary diet so that when we choose to eat meat, the livestock we are feeding compete with the needs of those people.

- It takes 10 to 16 pounds of grain and 2,500 gallons of water to produce one pound of beef, thereby converting 16,000 to 25,600 calories of grain into just 1,210 calories of meat (beef).

- The grain to produce the beef for a single meal could feed a person directly for 8-12 days.

- Farm animals consume 70% of the grain grown in America.

- If we reduced our meat consumption by HALF, and replaced it with legumes (beans) or soy products, we would save enough grain to feed 190 to 304 million people!! If we just enjoyed smaller cuts of meat, or a single burger rather than a double, we could make a big difference in the availability of grain as food for people.

- Farm animals consume 50% of the water used in America.

- Farm animals in America produce 86,000 pounds of excrement per second — about 130 times as much as is produced by all the humans in the United States. This enormous amount of pollution is huge.

- A single cow creates more pollution than driving a car every day.

- There is more than enough food in the world to feed the entire human population yet more than 840 million people still going hungry every day.
Our meat-based diet is partly to blame, as land, water, and other resources that could be used to grow food for human beings are being used to grow crops for farmed animals instead.

- It takes 10 to 16 pounds of grain to produce just 1 pound of edible animal flesh such as beef.
It takes 3 to 4 pounds of grain to produce just 1 pound of edible chicken flesh.
It takes only 2 to 3 pounds of grain to produce just 1 pound of edible fish.

- My family and I are working with systems to use hydroponics to create food for people and to feed fish raised to be eaten. This provides a healthier diet for us with less waste and less water use. We have chosen to reduce our beef consumption to 1 meal per week. This will save 1,581- 2,529 pounds of grain which is enough to feed 4-6 people FOR A YEAR!!! This will also save 395,281 gallons of water.

- As an added benefit, reducing our meat consumption and controlling our total caloric intake reduces our chances for cancer, diabetes and heart disease and will likely extend our lives by 3-5 years. A simple choice to create a more sustainable future, help reduce world hunger, and still enjoy a great steak or burger once in a while.

Related article: QRC – Eating Meat and Your health
http://omachron.com/articles/2009/09/09/qrc-eating-meat-and-your-health/

September 9, 2009

QRC – Eating Meat and Your health

Filed under: Health, Quick Reality Check — Tags: , , , — Administrator @ 23:55

I am not a vegetarian and do not advocate a vegetarian lifestyle. I am an omnivore who has decided to reduce my meat intake. I will continue to enjoy smaller portions of my favorite high quality meats thereby improving my health and potential for longevity.

Eating meat is an important health consideration.

The digestion of meat is inefficient and therefore requires the body to burn oxygen in a process called oxidation which results in the production of free radicals in the body. Many medical and scientific researchers believe that free radicals damage your body and are associated with disease and aging.

Whey, a natural bi-product of cheese manufacture is a high quality protein that is easy to digest and can be efficiently broken down by the body to provide needed protein with lower levels of free radicals produced compared to meat digestion. Simply cutting back on eating meat and getting some of your proteins from legumes, soy, or whey can potentially improve your health.

Researchers at Harvard Medical School found that “Men who eat red meat as a main dish five or more times a week have four times the risk of colon cancer of men who eat red meats less than once a month”. Heavy red-meat eaters were also found to have twice the risk of prostate cancer in a study of 50,000 male health professionals.

The risk of colon cancer increases with red meat consumption and may be associated with the methods of cooking the meat which can also introduce or create carcinogens.

It has also been found that all meats including beef, lamb, pork, chicken, turkey, eggs, and fish form acids in the body which are known to increase the risk of many illness and disease, since the highly acid forming diet causes a large accumulation of debris and hardened mucoid plaque (mucous) in the colon. Once the colon is damaged in this way, the body’s immune system, and ability to eliminate toxins becomes compromised.

My family and I still enjoy light quality lean meats, in much smaller portions, less frequently, and our physical health is enjoying the benefits.

August 24, 2009

Quick Reality Check – The secret lives of mushrooms

Filed under: Food, Health, Quick Reality Check — Tags: , , — Administrator @ 00:17

Mushrooms are an amazing and undervalued product in our world. Many people take mushrooms for granted and we often overlook the amazing biodiveristy, potential health benefits, and overall global role of mushrooms in our world.

Mushrooms grow in many places from woodlands to grasslands, in fields or in meadows, in partially-wooded uncultivated areas and in the forests of tall trees around the world. The simple brown mushroom, Agaricus bisporus for instance, is seen as a lowly form of life, drab in colour and small in size, which lives a quiet existence among the leaf litter on the forest floor.

However, many scientists have been studying mushrooms for many years and are even sequencing its genome and then deciphering its secrets because mushrooms and other fungi play an important role in the eco systems of the world by decomposing biomass into tiny particles, which can then be absorbed by plants, to start the cycle of life all over again. When plants are decomposed, some of the carbon they contain is released back into the atmosphere in the form of CO2. Some of the remaining carbon stays in the soil, in the form of organic particles mixed in with mineral matter. This organic component of the soil is highly important: not only does it make it much more fertile, it also enables the soil to act as a major carbon sink. In many cases there is as much carbon in the soil as in the plants growing in it, and sometimes much more!

Mushrooms and fungi can be used for bio-remediation projects where they will help to repair ecosystems damaged by pollution. Fungi and mushrooms can bio-accumulate heavy metals such as mercury or cadmium, nasty pollutants that impregnate certain soils where contaminated waste has been dumped. Mushrooms can pick up the pollutants and we can then pick up the mushrooms and process them to recover the toxic materials.

Biomass from woody plants such as eucalyptus, herbaceous plants such as wheat, soya bean or even from algae is a promising source of future energy. Mushrooms are being developed as a means to efficiently extract this energy efficiently and completely because the mushroom’s unique metabolism and miraculous enzymes. The United States’ Department of Energy (DoE) funds many projects in these areas.

Mushrooms were considered as plants for may years but now they form a kingdom all of their own, on an equal standing with animals and plants. They are distinguished from plants by their lack of starch or chlorophyll but, like them, mushrooms are absorbotrophic – that is to say they feed by passively absorbing nutrients (unlike animals, which ingest them). Mushrooms reproduce in so many strange and different ways that it is impossible to detail them all here.

The brown mushroom, Agaricus bisporus, is the most heavily consumed mushroom in the world. World mushroom production is growing and now exceeds 3 million tonnes, worth a market value of over US $ 10 billion. Despite the importance of mushrooms, little is known about its genetics and reproduction, and we are only starting to learn about the uses of mushrooms for medicinal purposes such as the treatment of cancers.

August 19, 2009

Quick Reality Check – The Dirty Secrets of Fish Farming

Filed under: Health, Quick Reality Check — Tags: , , , , , , , , — Administrator @ 01:31

Many people think of fish “farming” as an efficient and environmentally sustainable effort to feed the world while maintaining natural stocks of wild fish.

Unfortunately, nothing is further from the truth.

Many studies have shown that farmed fish and shellfish, which form a growing percentage of the seafood consumed around the globe, may pose unexpected risks to wild species, as well as to the environments in which they are raised.

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), an international group of scientists and other scientific groups have found may unintended impacts of fish farming that put both oceans and the aquaculture industry at risk.

Aquaculture, the raising of fish and other aquatic species is the fastest growing sector of the world food economy, and is increasing by 11 percent a year. Many people expect that fish farming will relieve pressure on ocean fish stocks which are already fished beyond capacity, and will provide a reliable source of food to a world population. The problem is that unsustainable fish farming practices are causing more harm than good. Dr. Daniel Pauly of the University of British Columbia Fisheries Centre released a global study, “Farming Up Marine Food Webs“, showing that major sectors of the booming aquaculture industry are literally feeding on world fisheries. Paradoxically, Pauly’s new study shows that the increasing trend toward farming carnivorous fish means that many types of aquaculture are contributing to a worldwide collapse of wild fisheries.

The “farming” of one pound of fish eating species such as shrimp, salmon, tuna or cod requires two to five pounds of wild caught fish to be caught and processed into meal and oil for fish feeds.

Thus, we are intensively fishing the oceans of the world to feed our “farmed fish” thereby increasing the rate of depletion of fish stocks and endangering wild populations of carnivorous fish.

Tilapia and carp are among the most common, and potentially most sustainable farm raised fish as they can be fed plants and “bottom muck” which minimizes their overall environmental impact. However, in an effort to increase the growth rates of the fish thereby increasing profits, many fish farming operation feed these “herbivorous” (plant eating) fish with fishmeal and fish oil for faster weight gain and marketability.

Thus, the “ideal” of efficiently feeding a hungry world in a sustainable manner with aquaculture is eluding us. The current trend in aquaculture is to drain the seas to feed the fish farms to feed people.
Traditional sustainable aquaculture which is the farming of fish that eat plants and bottom muck is being replaced by modern intensive farming of large, carnivorous fish because overfishing has decimated these fish in the wild.

There are however more sustainable fish farming operations such as Fish Breeders of Idaho, which raise a sustainable fish species, white tilapia, with the help of sustainable geothermal energy

Many proponents of current fish farming practices which rely on fish meal defend the practices on the basis that fish meal is abundant and inexpensive and consumer preferences for lower costs dictate aquaculture production and the use of fishmeal”.
According to Dr. Albert Tacon, head of the Oceanic Institute’s Aquatic Feeds and Nutrition Program in Hawaii. “Aquaculture is at a critical crossroads, and Fish farming could decrease pressure on fisheries and feed the worlds growing population. That’s why it is so important to proceed on a sustainable path.”

Aquaculture need not be so disruptive. There are many ways that the fish farming industry can produce more efficiently and with fewer negative environmental effects.

What you can do as an individual is eat herbivorous fish species such as Carp and Talapia which have been farmed by sustainable methods. Take the time to let your purchasing decisions impact your food supply and help to ensure a stable food supply for future generations. Reduce you intake of carnivorous fish species such as Salmon, Cod and Tuna, and avoid farmed carnivorous fish where possible.

August 17, 2009

Quick Reality Check – Your Water Footprint Matters

Filed under: Environment, Quick Reality Check — Tags: , , , , , , , — Administrator @ 23:46

Over the past few years, many people have learned about our “carbon footprint” and how using energy wastefully negatively impacts the environment and indirectly our health and the health of our children.

However, the concept of our “water footprint” is still a mystery to many people. Many people think that their water footprint consists of taking showers, flushing toilets, doing laundry, or watering their gardens. As such, many people do their part to “conserve water” by the use of low flow shower heads, water efficient washing machines, water conserving toilets etc. These conservations measures are extremely important but they are only a small part of our “water footprint”.

The key for us all to understand is that producing goods and services generally requires water.
According to a study by Williams et al. (2002), the production of a 32-megabyte computer chip of 2 grams requires 32 kg of water.

The water used in the production process of an agricultural or industrial product is often called the ‘virtual water’ contained in the product because it does not remain in the end product but it was used to make the product.

As an example, producing 1 kg of grain by conventional modern farming techniques requires 1,000-2,000 kg of water, which is 1,000 to 2,000 liters of water, about 265 to 530 US gallons of water. This means that a a single slice of bread weighing 35g required 35-70 liters of water to produce it. These numbers seem staggering and meat products represent an even bigger use of water.

For producing 1 kg of cheese we need for instance requires 5,000-5,500 kg of water, which is 5,000-5,500 liters of water, about 1,323 to 1,455 US gallons of water!

Producing beef is one of the most inefficient uses of water resources as producing just 1 kg of beef requires an average of 16,000 kg of water (Chapagain and Hoekstra, 2003), which is 16,000 liters, over 4,233 US gallons! The next time you are at the grocery store or your favorite restaurant, consider the 6 ounce cut rather than the 10oz portion, and you will improve your health and conserve 1,058 US gallons of water. If you opted for the 6 ounce steak instead of the 16 ounce steak, 2,646 US gallons of water would be saved. Simple dietary choices to eat healthy portions of food can improve your health, control your weight, and help to conserve water which is a precious resource.

The transportation of water is generally difficult due to the large distances and associated costs, but the trade in water-intensive products, a “virtual water trade” is a reality in the global economy and is stripping many developing countries of a precious natural resource at alarming rates.

The concept of ‘virtual water’ has been introduced by Tony Allan in the early nineties (Allan, 1993; 1994) yet it has taken almost two decades to get global recognition of the importance of the concept for achieving regional and global water security.

One of the key issues to a “sustainable future” will be to carefully choose how we deploy our precious water resources to the production of food, the manufacture of goods, and person use in homes each day.
Our “water footprint” must become a culturally rooted concept which recognizes that human impacts on freshwater systems are ultimately be linked to human consumption, and that issues like water shortages and pollution can thereby be understood.

Your daily living choices can reduce your footprint and improve your health and quality of life.

October 17, 2008

QRC – Sustainability for People – More than just Renewable Energy and Recycling

Filed under: Quick Reality Check, Sustainability — Administrator @ 01:13

1. Sustainability is much more than creating energy by renewable means and recycling our trash.

2. A concept for REAL sustainability must, in my opinion, include at its foundations a holistic view of the world around us.

3. A plan for sustainability requires a careful deliberation of the social, economic, environmental, and health care plans which me must develop and carry out.

4. We must be mindful that our decisions about how we choose to live each day as this will impact our future health and welfare, as well as the health and welfare of our children, grandchildren and all future generations.

6. Our society now has the technology and the capacity to completely change the world around us both for better or for worse.

7. We cannot live in the hope that science and technology will create a “magical” cure for all of the social, economic, environmental, and health care woes of the world.

8. Sustainability requires the calm resolve of people of good conscience to improve their lives and those of their children, grandchildren and all future generations through careful action today in terms of social, economic, environmental, and health care reforms.

9. We must seek to consume less while maintaining a happy and healthy lifestyle. These are not contradictory concepts.

10. We must of course use our natural resources wisely and recycle where possible.

11. We must also make hard decisions to boycott goods which are not fairly traded to allow our economic “voice” to speak to industry.

10. We must develop a more harmonious social infrastructure which protects and weak and rewards the diligent. When you purchase goods or services your economic “vote” shapes our society as much as you “vote” at the ballot box.

11. We must also carefully safeguard our legacy through our children by carefully limiting the chemicals to which we exposure ourselves and our children because the occurrence of diseases such as cancer is outpacing our advances in cancer treatment. We must improve all aspects of our environment including reducing the chemicals in our daily living that we choose to use. Read the labels on your soaps, shampoos, and conditioner, cosmetics, foods and beverages and protect the health and well being of you and your family by avoiding harmful ingredients.

12. I had many outstanding mentors including the noted scientist, cybernetician. philosopher, artist and spiritualist Stafford Beer, and the educator, scientist, electrostatics expert and public servant Prof AD Moore, the mechanical, electronics and nuclear expert and spiritualist Prof Stan Phillips.

13. I am fortunate to have worked in research and development for over 3 decades in many diverse areas including electrical, mechanical, thermal and chemical engineering, materials science, electrostatics, and various aspects of product development. I have worked on such diverse projects a prototype solar powered car in the mid 1970s, research into acid rain effects and the design of electrostatic precipitators and to address the issues in the late 1970s, to stirling engines, ozone water treatment, chemical conversion to use plasmas to restructure pollutants into useful chemicals, and many other projects.

14. Thus, my blogs will try to provide practical advice on what you can do to create a sustainable future for you, your family, and all of our families. I am taking a very holistic and cybernetic view of the world around us and trying to provide articles on this blog about all aspects of sustainability.

Wayne Conrad

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