Links for September 11, 2017: insect burgers, lessons from the PURE Study, death row food, and plastic in the water
I'm not bothered at all by the thought of insect larvae burgers. Are you?
For reasons I can't figure out, Swiss law allows use of only mealworm larvae, house crickets and migratory locusts. But apparently they taste fine:
The burger itself has little white specks of rice inside with traces of carrot, paprika, chili powder and pepper. After a hesitant bite, the main flavors that come out are the spices. The texture is curious, a bit like a meaty falafel with a crunch. An aftertaste lingered — but maybe that was just my subconscious playing tricks.
Sales are apparently brisk in a very limited release so far.
See also: Chapul cricket bars, which are delicious, and the Impossible Burger.
Marion Nestle points out what we already know about the PURE Study (that's Prospective Urban Rural Epidemiology): Fruits, veggies, and legumes are good for us.
And refined carbohydrates and sugar are bad. The study's "high fat" diet didn't even approach the amount of fat that most of us eat (18-30% versus 35% in the US), so it's impossible to really say what the study proved in regards to fat intake.
See also: David Katz on PURE, James Hamblin on PURE.
On death row, food rivals porn as an obsession for inmates.
Text below, in case you want to avoid reading the grisly details of a murdered family:
The second-most-prevalent obsession is food. Longo says he actually has two photo collections: nude women and gourmet cuisine. His letters to me are filled with food cravings: "a salt bagel with a full plain cream cheese schmeer from Einstein or Brueggers — toasted, of course"; "a cinnabon with a good cup of coffee"; "a pizza"; "honey-dripping baklava." To make the institutional meals more palatable, the men sometimes hold death-row dinner parties. Several inmates will pass their trays down the row to one cell — frequently, to Longo's. He'll combine all the food together, add commissary-bought items like hot sauce, peppers, and shredded cheese, then rebuild the plates "Cadillac style," as it's called, and send the trays back.
How all this plays into the choice of a last meal, I don't know.
94% of US tap water is contaminated by plastic fibers
I cannot find data on bottled water, but considering that most of it is packaged in plastic, I suspect it's no better. Why does this matter? Well, besides the ick factor, plastics have a notorious reputation in the endocrinology world as "endocrine disruptors," meaning that they exert a hormone-like effect on tissues. The most notorious chemical within plastics with this effect is bisphenol A, which among other effects acts as an estrogen mimic.