Thu 14 Feb 2008
Purple Haze?
Posted by anaglyph under Ooky, Science
[13] Comments
It’s truly Science Week here on The Cow.
It’s not often that you happen on the words ‘pig brain mist’ in a sentence, and so when the headline of an article is ‘Is Pig Brain Mist Linked to Mystery Ailment?’, you know it’s a must read. But before you do read on, a warning: the following might make you even more nauseous than the notion of a Pork Martini.
From this week’s New Scientist:
WORKERS at two pork-processing plants in the US have developed a mysterious nervous ailment after using compressed air to blast brain tissue from severed pig heads. The end product is a pink food paste that is canned and exported, but the process also generates an aerosol of brain matter that workers may inhale… Neurologist Daniel Lachance of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, suspects that this is the result of autoimmune damage triggered by immune reactions to proteins from the pig brains.
I’m not quite sure which concept makes me gag more: the pink food paste, or the aerosol of brain matter. I’m developing a mysterious nervous ailment simply by reading about it.
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…and I wonder if Dr Lachance has considered that merely the act of blasting brains out of severed porcine heads is enough, in itself, to give someone a serious nervous ailment. Or nightmares at the very least. Maybe if the workers sang to take their minds off their troubles…
OK. So that’s not really gonna help with the nightmares.
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*looks ill*
I’m going to be paranoid now… what is this ‘pink food paste?’ I don’t want to eat stuff with pig brains in it. (Hello, ever hear of prion diseases? CJD? Mad Cow disease?) The least they could do is tell us what this paste is. So that I can make sure I never ever eat it.
I must say, reverend, I agree; just reading about this is giving me a ‘mysterious nervous ailment.’ *eyes food pastes in the supermarket nervously*
I dunno if that was the chipmunks I just listened to, but the thought of abattoir workers singing like Alvin gives me a nervous ailment!
“pink food paste”? I’m thinking spam. You decide whether that needs capitalisation or not.
er … I might have to revise my contention that everything tastes better with bacon.
thththththththththtththat’s all folks
You’d think they would’ve worn those little face-sized riot shields you see coroner’s wearing on CSI and such when they have to use the little hand-held circular forehead-splitting saw.
I’m sure there are other names for those two things, but I think you get my drift.
I don’t even want to know where that pink meaty brainpaste gunk is exported to. Nope.
I’ll see if I can’t find some to mail to you.
Purple Dragon: I find that a good rule of thumb when at the supermarket is to avoid pink jars labelled ‘Pig Brain Paste’.
evenstar: Not like you’d necessarily know or anything, but the singing ‘chipmunks’ in that recording are actually pigs. As for s/Spam, well, capitalized or not, it’s prolly something the world could live without.
Cissy Strutt: Are you on commission for that book or something?
Malach: Our favourite ham!
buzzardbilly: They only export the inferior stuff. The best finds its way into a popular US breakfast cereal. Mwahahahaha!
Atlas: Nice. Pop in a tube of Chick-fil-A while you’re at it.
I want to know how air blasted pig brains = pink food paste. At what time did that turn into a food product aside from maybe dog food?
Seems to be a bit of information missing. (I don’t know if I can trust SPAM anymore. It is a pink pork food product.)
MI: Er… you trusted Spam previously…
I think the gods of gastronomy that my dentist has rendered breakfast cereal useless to me except for oats.
You never had spam cabobs?
I think I know what they make with the pink paste. It is those ‘Ham Steaks’ that are perfectly round.
They work in a slaughterhouse. They had it coming to ’em.