Cancer and You

by MaxPower

Stockholm University carried out a study in collaboration with ‘experts’ at Sweden’s National Food Administration, a government food safety agency. Guess what, tests showed carbohydrate rich foods all contain high quantities of acrylamide, a chemical that is classified as a probable human carcinogen, which only appears when carbohydrates are heated when cooked or prepared.

Let’s recap that means bread, noodles, rice, potatoes, anything made with wheat and the common by-products of these foods are all causing cancer. These are staples of life, and the study recommends that the population eats more fruits and vegetables. So we can replace complex carbohydrates with simple sugars. Everyone’s metabolism will slow down, we’ll all get fat and die of heart disease. Don’t quote or listen to me on that fact though as I am not a bio-chemist. Neither are, as can be plainly seen, the hacks who wrote that report. But wait, the US Food Standards Agency said consumers do not need to change their diet in the light of this report. Oh well that’s a relief I was going to throw out all my carbohydrates when I got home today.

What kind of report is this? Someone had to fund it. Lets say it is true, which I doubt, carbs cause cancer. What would the world do about it? Stop eating the foods? Like I said we are talking about staples of life here. Its not like they are saying you can’t eat shark or some obscure fruit. Bread, stop eating it. Thought that nice big piece of red meat you are BBQing will give you heart disease, well those potatoes your having with it will kill you! You think we have starvation problems now, wait till the food gestapo starts kicking over bowls of rice in developing countries. Hey China and India – all 2.2 billion of you, stop eating rice it’ll give you cancer. Hey Italy don’t you know noodles will kill you?

Maybe the problem is Western countries have become so well off that we can start cutting out foods because there is a chance, maybe, that at some point in the future it may or may not cause cancer. Its like global warming (what isn’t?) which may or may not be happening but lets rush in a solution now and wait 50 years and see if we were right.

Every week some study comes out that says something causes cancer in humans. It looks to me like everything causes cancer. Or perhaps, nothing actually causes cancer and that humans get it as a matter of course. However, we know smoking causes cancer and tons of people still do it on a regular basis, so what does this report achieve? Probably somewhere, some super veggie freak will cut out carbs from their diet to go along with meats, cheese, eggs, milk and anything that could possibly contain pesticides or a chemical. So they’ll be great until it’s reported that tofu causes cancer. Which it must do, come on it comes in block form! But 99.9% of the people on earth will go on eating complex carbohydrates.

I think there should be a law somewhere, maybe in the European Union (they’re great at making stupid laws, like bananas have to have X degrees of curve) that you can only do research if it could actually be used, or have some practical application. This would keep from hearing about these studies that claim, if you punch someone in the face long enough they will become angered and irritable.

Something else health related has been in the news in Europe recently. It centres on what the Brits call the MMR vaccine, more commonly known as the Measles, Mumps and Rubella vaccination. Pretty much everyone in the Western Hemisphere gets the shot and for good reason. Who was the last person you know who got one of those diseases? The controversy comes from someone who came up with the idea that this MMR vaccine causes autism and bowel cancer. The guy who wrote the first report on this subject used a whopping 12 subjects to link the vaccine with autism. The latest study out, looked at 2000 previous studies on the subject with subjects in the tens of thousands, and established no link. But lets all guess which one the media focuses on because it’s more interesting.

I’m not an inherently paranoid or pessimistic person, I like to think most people are decent and are working towards things for the good of human kind. However, I am becoming more and more sceptical about the media’s intentions.

I think I can see a connection between the media and the propagation of these stupid research studies. The scientists conducting research in universities and journalists have one thing in common. They can’t hack it in the real world.

  • Cancer and You
  • by MaxPower
  • Published on July 1st, 2002

More from :

Other recent features: