Sat 22 Sep 2007
Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off
Posted by anaglyph under Food & Drink, Science, Tragedy
[10] Comments
So I’m watching this science show on the tv and the presenter starts talking about another thing that science has found that we shouldn’t be eating because it will, like, kill you! The chemical in question, so the pretty tv-journo-scientist tells me, is called acrylamide, and is bad, bad, bad!
“So what?” I hear you say, “I don’t hold with those kinds of food additives anyways! I’ll just avoid anything that they add it to!”
Brace yourselves Acowlytes. The news is not good. One of the most common places that these nosy scientists have found acrylamide is in fried or roasted potatoes. You know that crunchy, golden crusty coating on the potato? The best bit? That’s where you get yer mother-lode of acrylamide.
Oh noes! ROAST POTATOES! Someone has found that ROAST POTATOES are bad for you! That surely must be a Sign of the End Times!
This is what it says about acrylamide at Wikipedia:
There is evidence that exposure to large doses can cause damage to the male reproductive glands. Direct exposure to pure acrylamide by inhalation, skin absorption, or eye contact irritates the exposed mucous membranes, e.g. the nose, and can also cause sweating, urinary incontinence, nausea, myalgia, speech disorders, numbness, paresthesia, and weakened legs and hands. In addition, the acrylamide monomer is a potent neurotoxin. Ingested acrylamide is metabolised to a chemically reactive epoxide, glycidamide
Let me translate: Don’t eat roast potatoes. Don’t touch roast potatoes. And never, never, never inhale roast potatoes or cram them in your eyes or up your nose.
Look at those symptoms: Urinary incontinence! Paresthesia! Myalgia. Damage to the male reproductive glands! And it’s a neurotoxin for chrissakes! It will further come as no surprise that acrylamide is linked to cancer as well. If you are a consumer of certain brands of potato chips* that use olestra, you can for good measure add anal leakage to this catalogue of woes.
The bit about speech disorders is true for sure – even reading about all this has rendered me speechless!
Fortunately, there is a crispy golden salty light at the end of the horrible scientific chemical tunnel; other scientists (the kind who I’d much rather hang out with) at J.R. Simplot Co. of Idaho, have developed a genetically modified potato with an altered gene structure that will ‘rebuff’ acrylamide and make a safe-to-eat roast potato or French fry.
Tetherd Cow Ahead’s financial tip for this week is to put your money into J. R. Simplot Co. If there’s ever anything that’s going to turn around the negative public view of genetic modification it’s the salvation of the fried potato. It may be the only hope we have.
___________________________________________________________________________
*Olean is a company that manufactures Olestra. If you followed the link, you will have seen the somewhat disconcerting counter on their site that ticks out ‘The Number of Servings of Oleanâ„¢ Consumed’ (it’s currently at about 5 billion). Now reflect on that counter as a measure of the flow of anal leakage…
___________________________________________________________________________
Okay, so remind me not to make eye contact with a roast potato.
Wow, it’s just too bad my Irish great grandpa only lived to 103, if he had made another decade, he could have been warned about how dangerous all those roasted/fried/mashed/boiled/baked potatoes were. And to think all of the Irish and German ancestors within living memory only had no less than ten children a piece, sometimes 18 because of all the reproductive damage of those damn roots.
Just think, if science had been around back in their day, their could be even MORE of me running around.
I’m just glad someone could warn us about the menace in our pantries with enough notice to keep my male reproductive equipment working.
Sounds worth the risk to me
So thats why i feel so bad after a Roast on Sunday Night. All that work to get the potatoes “Just Right” was in fact a recipe to kill me and my guests.
Oh well I guess its back to Tofu and beans for Sunday Eve dinners then.
Mind you there was a report in New Scientist that did suggest that this not true and another report did not see the same results, so I figure I will believe them and I will be fine.
S
I took a girl out on a date
I picked her up at half past 8.
For dinner we went out to eat
Potatoes fried, a tasty treat.
I took her home, we tried to fuck
But it seems I had no luck.
Instead I came off as a wimp
Because Rasputin had gone limp.
This is why I do not watch tv.
Pass me some o’ them taters, willya?
anal leakage? now you’re getting into gimcrack material
Cissy Strutt: Spare a thought for the poor potato,having no choice but to make contact with its own eyes.
Casey: Soon the scientists will just cut to the chase and issue an edict that says simply: “Everything that you like is bad for you.”
Malach: No argument from me.
hewhohears: Nooooooo! Not tofu and beans again…!!! But at least, can we have whisky?
jmf: I notice you didn’t try for a rhyme with acrylamide…
RaJ: Some butter & salt with that?
nursemyra: I just report the facts ma’am.
I tried to rhyme acrylamide,
it took too long and then I died.
I have a strict rule about these food scare stories. If it says something that I like is bad for me, then it is Junk Science and I ignore it. If it says something I don’t like is bad for me, I take it as gospel truth.
I’m still waiting for the study that shows Brussels sprouts cause cancer.
Also, J.R. Simplot is a terrible name for a company – simple, simpleton, simpering, plotting… all the word assocations are bad, bad, bad.