Food, can it hurt you?Food is a substance that can eaten or drunk, with or without pleasure, to sustain the body without harm.The ingredients are subclassified as carbohydrates, proteins, fats, vitamins, minerals, and proteins have amino acids. In todays world the production and harvesting, mostly, is commercially done, yet some still grow and harvest a small portion themself. The yield for plant and animal production is greatly increased by using herbicides and pesticides and fertilizers and additives. These additional chemicals are also deemed pollutants to the environment and to the food. To many these additives are a bane and such will seek to buy organically grown products. This greatly increases the cost. Technically the world can grow and distribute enough to supply everyone, but drought and floods, hail, and other catastrophies, can present as famine and hunger in a given region. Modern transportation capability is great. Refrigeration during shipment, and the speed, makes it practical to exchange products between the northern and southern hemispheres. This adds greatly to the product choices in stores today. Foods must still be stored. Apart from refrigeration, the shelf life, without spoilage, is extended by dehydration, by excluding oxygen with vacuum or carbon dioxide, and by additives, and by sterilization as in canning. Having indicated that oxygen removal is a method of food preservation, it is also relavent to note the exception. The Clostridia bacteria live in soil, are spore bearing, and which are obligate anaerobes. The spore exists on fruit, on vegetables, and on meat. The Clostridium spore withstands the home canning temperature of 100 degree Centigrade, and sealing the container to exclude oxygen is made to order for the spore to rejuvinate. In rare cases botulin is produced in home canned fruit, vegetables, and meat.It can occur in sausage, ham, and fish. There are many strains of Clostridia and a number of antigenically distinct botulins, and all the botulins can be considered as having potential to be fatal. Spoilage may be heralded by a bulging lid, and an off taste, or odor, or texture, of the canned food. In such case the food must be destroyed. If no distinct change is noticable to an older canned product you may add to your security by boiling the product for ten minutes, as botulin is heat labile and detoxifies thereby. Botulism has an onset of fatigue and weakness, and of headache and dizziness. The time from exposure till onset is reduced by increase of dose and varies from within hours to days. Any sympytomatic suspicion of exposure merits medical attention for consideration of administration antibotulin. Botulin interferes with acetylcholine production or use. In recent times it has gained favor with dermatologists to control sweating and to reduce wrinkles. (Clostridium tetani toxin contracts muscle, botulin relaxes muscle - either one can kill) The ubiquitous Staphilococci exist as widely distributed in nature and in the nares and on the skin of people. The pimple and the boil (furuncle) are the expression of a pathogenic stapholococcus. There are a number of commensal strains too, but there are strains of staphilococci carried that under right conditions of moisture, temperature and time produce an enterotoxin. Hence, when an enterotoxin producing strain gets transferred from a person to warm cooked meat, to custards and milk products, to gravies, and left unrefrigerated long enough, a staphylococcal enterotoxixin food poisoning might occur. Incubation may be as short as half an hour. It presents with severe nausea and vomiting and simultaneous diarrhea and prostration. With fluid replacement and rest, spontaneous recovery is usual for those in their prime. Foods are grown in soil. Without being pedantically thorough let's note the the obvious. The quantity and quality of plant growth, fruits and vegetables included, are much influenced by soil and weather. Apart from growers reacting to weather, it is noteworthy that crop rotation is deemed a good practice. It is understood that each plant species draws uniquely from soil elements. Crop rotation thus may reduce soil depletion and the secondary low nutritional content of the element of low content in that area. If you only want to think green then will you primarily eat local produce. Let us turn aside to picture the situation where you feel below par and you may have or may not have consulted a nutritionist, a dietition or/and a doctor, and you are not yet happy with the out-come. What comes next? Should I give reference only to products that have the assurance of scientific study credence? In scientific studies you have large samples, and then by choosing set of known alikes, you then divide the set into a control group and the compare group, to which you interject a variable or two, or more, and then at some interval you assess the differance in out-come between the control and the experiment group. Then by mathematical analysis you conclude that the treated group was bettered or worsened by a statistically significant degree. Sometimes individualls have stories of unique benefits from a known or unknown substance. In such a story the evidence of cure is called anecdotal and the scientific community would first assess the product by appling a large group planned scientific study before endorsing it.
Consider that according to statistics once in a million happens with appropriate frequency. Teleologically I infer that were one to assess an individual for a million parameters the chance that such would all lie within a narrow variation of the population median is less likely than one in a million. And, medically I endorse that doctors prescibe poison within defined situations. But it should do more good than harm, and you choose from the greatest good and the least harm available to counter an established condition. Conversely, if, anecdotally, claims for the health benefits of a substance seems hyperbolic, and it has not been scientifically tested, and if toxicity is not been associated, then might you consider testing it at your own risk. But, it is apropos to note that the 'counter drugs culture' and 'nature source culture' will sometimes push their products as stongly as the drug companies push theirs. And natural products can be overdosed with, and illness can then ensue therefrom.
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