Additives, and Cancer.

[smizak]

Fungus, I find your views on food very encouraging. I'm lucky enough to live near some organic farms, I actually belong to a CSA group with one of them, ultra-fresh, local organic fruit and vegetables all summer long.

I'm also encouraged by your recovery, congratulations. This past summer a very good friend of my family succumbed to an extremely aggressive lymphoma. He was a young man that just started a family, it was(still is) a horrible tragedy.

Keep it up man, your attitude and self-education have obviously served you well. Homebrew has got to be a better option, you know exactly what you're putting in there, so hurray for knowing how to make beer!

 

[lurker18]

Fungus, good on you to get past that. I am just over a year past my cancer removal surgury, and was lucky enough to not need the chemo (so far). I know that it is a very trying time, both to you and your family, for me it was the wife that was more affected by the news.

Keep up the brewing, eat the way you want, and enjoy.

 

[Obelisk]

I'm on the cancer management treadmill, and may be for the rest of my life. Like most people in this circumstance, I have read about any and all diets and food types that will help manage cancer and there really are just a few to intensely avoid - I'm not talking about what causes cancer, but how to not fuel the cancer. The two most troublesome things to avoid are growth hormones (found in most commercial red meats) and highly refined sugar. Both are vigorously consumed by cancer cells. So, I've stopped eating red meat - except for the occasional bite of steak - and cut out candy and ice cream. I also limit myself to 1 home brew per day, and every sip is heaven. You should be careful about the amount of alcohol you consume because your liver needs all the TLC it can get.

 

[Boerderij_Kabouter]

Didn't read anything. My biggest advice is to brew in stainless equipment and fermenting kegs. This way you can steam sanitize everything and literally put nothing in your beer but water hops, barley, and yeast.

Just make a heat stick and pop it in a keg with some water. Steam heats and kills everything. Put any other stuff (hosing etc.) in the keg to to sanitize that stuff.

 

[weirdboy]

srry for the confusion...lol and thanks for the info....as for the know-it-all comment, I will say that I NEVER have or will claim to know it all. I am learning and will be until I am dead but I do thank you for trolling my reply, maybe your mommy made you a cookie.

I make my own cookies, thank you very much.

If your post didn't come off sounding like a know-it-all, I wouldn't have made a comment to that regard.

 

[AiredAle]

Hey, Fungus,

Way to go, beating the cancer. I am busy working on my own case now. I have been educating myself about complimentary treatments, nutrition, exercise, stress reduction and avoidance of known carcinogens. etc. I strongly recommend a book called "Anticancer, A new way of life" by David Servan-Schrieber. He is a physician (psychiatrist) who developed and beat brain cancer twice, and got interested in non-conventional ways to augment his conventional treatments after it returned the second time.

I won't go into it more here, but get a copy and see what you think. Lot of good insight backed up by original research paper citations from refereed medical journals.

 

[FungusBrew]

Thanks so much for the encouraging comments, and sharing of knowledge. Hearing your stories, and how this disease effects families and love ones is a huge contributing factor in making us fight harder, and stay stronger through it all.

CSA programs are awesome! I went to school up in Stevens Point Wisconsin where my roomate and I participated in community agriculture events, and ethnobotany. You would always meet tons of interesting people, and learn so much. Hopefully, It'll be something that catches on in the near future even more then it already has.

On a chemical note, I've heard that commercial breweries use preservatives when canning and bottling for freshness. Anyone know if this is true? Just a wonderin'.

 

[olllllo]

Someone else said it, but Alcohol is the most dangerous thing in brewing.

Also they don't have Finings Anonymous.

Carry on.

 

[bob1852]

Someone else said it, but Alcohol is the most dangerous thing in brewing.

Also they don't have Finings Anonymous.

Carry on.

maybe someone will start a group of "insinglass anon."?

 

[JefeTheVol]

Ahh HBT, you never cease to put a smile on my face. I didn't ask what causes cancer in the world, that's what CNN's for. Heck, I didn't even ask what causes cancer in beer. The only thing I'm interested in here is what questionable ingredients you guys find yourselves using when you homebrew.

As for the Raw food thing, I was just being sarcastic. There's no way I would substitute my diet for an all raw one. I'm a firm believer that our ability to cook food, is a key attribute in why we're human. Cooked food led to a higher evolved degree of brain development over millenia, as it introduced different protein chains and vitamins unobtainable before.

Local, Organic produce and meat is the way to go. I wouldn't buy organic eggs from California living in New York, it defeats the big picture in my eyes. Now, there's nothing wrong with pesticide, hormone, antibiotic free foods. If one so chooses to go that route, so be it. They'll always be plenty of people to call it a joke, and keep on eating their big macs. The system wont fail because of the hippies. Relax, have a home brew. Oh, and there's plenty of information available to show organic is "healthier". For example, US Lamb is injected with a growth hormone that is directly linked to breast cancer. NZ and Aussie lamb is hormone free, organic. Would you honestly rather have an antibiotic, hormone injected piece of meat as opposed to the latter? There's a reason that Europe has a total trade embargo with the US on meat products. They completly ban the use of the nasty stuff, and totally refuse to take ours. I'm with the Germans It seems pretty obvious to me that something organic, is healthier. Simply because our bodies evolved without all that garbage, and now that it's being introduced to our diets, we don't know how the hell to metabolize it. It sits in us as a foreign invader, and eventually renders itself harmful. Children (more prominent in girls), are hitting puberty at ridiculously early rates as compared to 75 years ago. It's an obvious, and direct link to growth hormones from meat in their diet. Yet, everyone wants to deny it because they grew up eating it and are fine. Are we? I'll let you be the judge. At least that's how I see it, if you do differently, I've got no problem at all. Another beauty of being human is how we get to choose what we want with our lives. The fossil fuel thing related to organic farms being further in the country is a funny one. Check out where that orange juice in your frige came from, probably china. Makes me wonder how much shipping goes into having every vegetable under the sun available to me at wall mart in the heart of a mid-west winter. If everyone bought local organic, we would save BILLIONS on fossil fuels. Heck, it's one of pro arguments for it. Seems like there are stronger arguments to address then fossil fuels when opposing. Like you said, unreliable yields, high labor input, etc.


In my opinion the FDA is exceptionally questionable. One example of many; They consider high fructose corn syrup "natural". HFCS is a molecularly compromised sugar that is found no wear in nature. It's synthetically made from a corn base, and can't be metabolized as easily as sucrose. Our bodies just don't know what the hell to do with it. But alas, it's natural. From a homebrew standpoint pertaining to the FDA, I highly doubt they regulate any of our ingredients JefetheVol. There's a ton of things they have don't have anything to do with, and unless you prove me wrong (I'm not 100% sure just assuming), I'm going to go on believing that our hobby is void of FDA regulation.


This is all strictly just my opinion, of course they'll be plenty of people who disagree. I eat non organic meat all the time, and drink in excess even more. Once again, I was only interested in what you saw as sketchy with homebrew ingredients. I know the sun is bad, and botulism sucks. Ha, maybe if we didn't have antibodies in our meat, we could build up a better resistance to it? Ohh man..


Prost!

I think it would be naive to think the FDA doesnt have a hand in some part of homebrewing. Example: we put corn sugar, into our beers, which is a food and is under the jurisdiction of the Food and Drug Administration. Either way, despite any or no goverment involvement doesnt exclude my earlier statement that if convincing evidence existed we would know about it.

Without evidence to an ingredient's danger, no conclusion can be made, and it is up to the brewer to decide.
-Jefe-

 

[smizak]

CSA programs are awesome! I went to school up in Stevens Point Wisconsin where my roomate and I participated in community agriculture events, and ethnobotany. You would always meet tons of interesting people, and learn so much. Hopefully, It'll be something that catches on in the near future even more then it already has.

The CSA program I belong to started with 100 members in 1996. It now has 900. You get a nice newsletter every week when you pick up your food telling you how the farm is going and how the crops are coming along. I love it, it ends up costing me $14 a week for a big grocery bag stuffed with food.

 

[dwarven_stout]

My wife never understands why I argue on the internet...

There's some good stuff in this thread. I homemake a lot of things that we use, and we make an effort to buy local and in season, to preserve, and to develop relationships with the actual people who grow the food that we but. I respect some of the ideals in this thread, but I'm really bugged by a few things:

Oh, and there's plenty of information available to show organic is "healthier". For example, US Lamb is injected with a growth hormone that is directly linked to breast cancer. NZ and Aussie lamb is hormone free, organic. Would you honestly rather have an antibiotic, hormone injected piece of meat as opposed to the latter?

I use all organic, naturally derived hormones when injecting my livestock. I also feed them offal from the previous slaughter. Would you eat my lamb?

It seems pretty obvious to me that something organic, is healthier.

That's called the Appeal to Nature fallacy.

Makes me wonder how much shipping goes into having every vegetable under the sun available to me at wall mart in the heart of a mid-west winter. If everyone bought local organic, we would save BILLIONS on fossil fuels. Heck, it's one of pro arguments for it.

The shipping cost is huge. I heard someone say that the In&Out cheeseburger is the quintessential product of the industrial age. No other time in history would have fresh meat, sliced tomato and onion, and cheese all on the same plate. Still, shipping costs are a reason to buy local, not organic. Someone already pointed out that "organic" farming has very high opportunity costs- an additional point is that "organic" pesticides (such as spraying plants with oil) are non-discriminatory and may have a large impact on the populations of beneficial insects.

In my opinion the FDA is exceptionally questionable. One example of many; They consider high fructose corn syrup "natural". HFCS is a molecularly compromised sugar that is found no wear in nature. It's synthetically made from a corn base, and can't be metabolized as easily as sucrose. Our bodies just don't know what the hell to do with it. But alas, it's natural.

This is by far the least sensible thing that you've said. HFCS is no more "synthetic" than the maltose that you extract from grain. It is composed of fructose and glucose sugars in approximately the same amounts as honey- the reason that the Chinese and others use HFCS to stretch honey is because they are so similar.

Your "easily digested" sucrose is simply glucose and fructose bound together; rather than being easier to digest, it takes the body an extra step to cleave the di-saccharide bond. There is no such thing as a "molecularly compromised sugar". That's not even an actual term- if a sugar were molecularly compromised, it would no longer be a sugar.

I also do not use any Teflon in my brewing/cooking...

That seems unnecessarily cautious... As long as you keep it below 500 degrees, Teflon is one of the most inert substances that we have ever been able to make. I'd be less worried about cooking on Teflon than on copper or aluminum (aluminum has been casually linked to neuro problems, for example).

- We have planted hops and I think some 2-row barley is not far off in the distance either, as well as other adjuncts that we use. ie. Irish moss, heather flowers. We do not use any chemicals or unnatural items to produce these things.

Cool. I grow hops, and grew buckwheat this year. Next year I think I'll do more buckwheat and some barley.

 

[Zamial]

My wife never understands why I argue on the internet...

You are not arguing to me this is like a zombie rez thread and a discussion. Since you did not rez the thread to try advertize SPAM and you quoted me I will be happy to partcipate. FWIW When I read my quote I laughed REALLY REALLY hard, I will explain below...

There's some good stuff in this thread. I homemake a lot of things that we use, and we make an effort to buy local and in season, to preserve, and to develop relationships with the actual people who grow the food that we but. I respect some of the ideals in this thread, but I'm really bugged by a few things:

I use all organic, naturally derived hormones when injecting my livestock. I also feed them offal from the previous slaughter. Would you eat my lamb?

Please send me an address where I can show up with some mint and olive oil, heck I will even bring some hummus and yogurt or I can PM you with my shipping address... My biggest concern is antibotics not hormones, well not ALL hormones...

That's called the Appeal to Nature fallacy.

The shipping cost is huge. I heard someone say that the In&Out cheeseburger is the quintessential product of the industrial age. No other time in history would have fresh meat, sliced tomato and onion, and cheese all on the same plate. Still, shipping costs are a reason to buy local, not organic. Someone already pointed out that "organic" farming has very high opportunity costs- an additional point is that "organic" pesticides (such as spraying plants with oil) are non-discriminatory and may have a large impact on the populations of beneficial insects..

Just because something is labeled "organic" does not intantly make it better for you. Cow urine is organic and is sometimes sprayed onto food as a natural pesticide...no thanks...I would much rather have the lamb...

This is by far the least sensible thing that you've said. HFCS is no more "synthetic" than the maltose that you extract from grain. It is composed of fructose and glucose sugars in approximately the same amounts as honey- the reason that the Chinese and others use HFCS to stretch honey is because they are so similar.
Your "easily digested" sucrose is simply glucose and fructose bound together; rather than being easier to digest, it takes the body an extra step to cleave the di-saccharide bond. There is no such thing as a "molecularly compromised sugar". That's not even an actual term- if a sugar were molecularly compromised, it would no longer be a sugar.

I perfer natural cane sugar myself. I have even started to play with the idea of soda making to get away from HFCS.

That seems unnecessarily cautious... As long as you keep it below 500 degrees, Teflon is one of the most inert substances that we have ever been able to make. I'd be less worried about cooking on Teflon than on copper or aluminum (aluminum has been casually linked to neuro problems, for example).

I agree that aluminum is bad I personally do not own any cookware that is aluminum. Teflon is REALLY bad. Quick history lesson. Teflon is made and produced by the DOW chemical corp. They own the patent on it. Teflon has been found in every human being on Earth and even in animals where no teflon should even be possible to get to them, like Polar bears. Do not be overly concerned the DOW chemical corporation has deemed you "acceptible losses" and will continue making chemicals.

Cool. I grow hops, and grew buckwheat this year. Next year I think I'll do more buckwheat and some barley.

When I commented originally about the garden I was still VERY new to the idea of a brew garden and brewing in general. I thought Irish moss was a floral thing not Red Kelp, comming from being around a lot of gardeners I thought I could grow some...that still makes me laugh... I also have pretty much given up on the idea of growing my own barley because home malting is a huge undertaking to make it worth the effort. I do have 3 hop varities growing and plan to double the hop garden this spring and add 2 more varities. I do not spray anything but well water on anything I plan to ingest.

 

[weirdboy]

The shipping cost is huge. I heard someone say that the In&Out cheeseburger is the quintessential product of the industrial age. No other time in history would have fresh meat, sliced tomato and onion, and cheese all on the same plate.

This is a terrible example, since they locally source their ingredients.

 

[dwarven_stout]

This is a terrible example, since they locally source their ingredients.

And you completely missed the point.

 

[plumbob]

I'd just like to say that Organic food != Better for you.

Take for example phosphate fertilizers. An essential element to growing healthy crops of all sorts. In many cases that means manure, which is most definetly organic. However if it is a product to be consumed raw (most leafy vegetables, mellons, fruits, tobacco, etc.) it means mineral fertilizer.

Now, these minerals as they come out of the ground are rather dirty and contaminated with all sorts of stuff you don't want to eat, in organic farming they are powdered and spread on the field more or less unmodified. Conventional farmers modify and purify these compounds such that they remove most of the contaminants.

In the particular case of tobacco, organically grown tobacco is substantially higher in Polonium (strongly implicated in lung, mouth, and throat cancers) than conventionally grown because of the way phosphate fertilizer is used. Thus smokers who may be choosing an additive free, organically grown product for supposed health reasons are in fact buying an even more toxic version of an already toxic product.

This is obviously a limited example, but the premise holds. There are many 100% natural and organic things in this world that are quite deadly. Some of those things make their way into or onto "organic" products and result in a product that is worse for you than an conventional one.

 

[plumbob]

I agree that aluminum is bad I personally do not own any cookware that is aluminum. Teflon is REALLY bad. Quick history lesson. Teflon is made and produced by the DOW chemical corp. They own the patent on it. Teflon has been found in every human being on Earth and even in animals where no teflon should even be possible to get to them, like Polar bears. Do not be overly concerned the DOW chemical corporation has deemed you "acceptible losses" and will continue making chemicals.

Aluminum (the 8th most common element on earth) is not of any great consequence as far as toxicity. Acute toxicity only occurs at about 500g for the average adult. That would be eating just over a pound of powdered aluminum all at once. For a reference point, table salt is twice as toxic, caffeine ten times so, and sodium fluoride (the stuff in toothpaste) is 100x as toxic.

Over the long term, aluminum does compete with Calcium in the bones and nervous system, while that is true, your body isn't keen on absorbing it in the first place. Even if Aluminum were something to get worked up over, your level of exposure to it is far far greater from antiperspirants, antacids, and depending on where you live groundwater, than from your cookware.

 

[Reno_eNVy]

Aluminum (the 8th most common element on earth) is not of any great consequence as far as toxicity. Acute toxicity only occurs at about 500g for the average adult. That would be eating just over a pound of powdered aluminum all at once. For a reference point, table salt is twice as toxic, caffeine ten times so, and sodium fluoride (the stuff in toothpaste) is 100x as toxic.

Over the long term, aluminum does compete with Calcium in the bones and nervous system, while that is true, your body isn't keen on absorbing it in the first place. Even if Aluminum were something to get worked up over, your level of exposure to it is far far greater from antiperspirants, antacids, and depending on where you live groundwater, than from your cookware.

Quoted for truth

 

[weirdboy]

And you completely missed the point.

Well, maybe you'd better explain it to me.


I thought "quintessential product of the industrial age" implied that all these ingredients wouldn't be available through local sources. Luckily In-n-Out is based in California which has a robust agricultural industry that is able to supply everything that goes on a hamburger.

 

[JefeTheVol]

Holy, busted thread batman...its back!!! I got an email about this thread and I was like "Who hacked my account and posted a bunch of organic food comments?"

Then I was like, "Oh, I did....back in 2010" I got a good laugh from it.

 

[dwarven_stout]

Well, maybe you'd better explain it to me.


I thought "quintessential product of the industrial age" implied that all these ingredients wouldn't be available through local sources. Luckily In-n-Out is based in California which has a robust agricultural industry that is able to supply everything that goes on a hamburger.

"Local" for In&Out means "within a day's truck ride of a central facility", which I guess makes it depend on your definition of local (and on where the foodstuffs at that facility came from). That aside, I'm pretty sure that even California's vaunted agricultural paradise doesn't produce commercial tomatoes in February.

The point is that there has been no prior time in history that provides raw meat, cheese, tomatoes and lettuce from any source, "local" or otherwise, on every single day in the year.

 

[ChillWill]

PVPPP is plastic as said above and I've always wondered about it. It's crazy effective though.

We recently switched to that at work and silica hydragel, our beer is insanely clear. We centifuge it out and worked with a lab to test it and all seems ok.

 

[Fizzycist]

There are so many things out there that minutely increase your chance of cancer, but you'd make yourself miserable trying to dodge it all for that extra 0.004% chance. For example, every small dose of radiation you get is a small chance of cancer. We get plenty of it from the sun, dirt, food we eat, and so on. You can decrease what you get by moving to lower elevation, away from regions with high natural uranium ore, changing your diet to avoid bananas etc. But the cumulative effect of that change is less than what you get from a dental x-ray, or flying across the country on an airliner. And then, all that is just chance! Plenty of people with low risk factors get cancer, plenty of people with high risk dodge it. The fact that you've already had it pretty much wipes out any other consideration. So I'm with the others here. RDWHAHB.

Sorry for the essay.

 

[dgremark]

If your want to get really healthy, you can become a Level 5 vegan. I hear they don't eat anything that casts a shadow....

My parents are on it and have been for over a year. My Mom has taken high BP meds for the last 30+ years and the doc took her off last month! They are both in there 80's and really in good shape. I think it has more to do with genetics that diet! We have family members that have lived to 100+ drank daily and ate meat every day! LOL

GL and I pray for you!

 

[z987k]

We recently switched to that at work and silica hydragel, our beer is insanely clear. We centifuge it out and worked with a lab to test it and all seems ok.

Curious as to why you centrifuge it out? It's been found to be entirely harmless, except for a few extremely rare allergies.... but this is the stuff that pill capsules are made of. A person would have to have never taken a pill before to not know. It's used in a lot of medical applications as well.

 

[ChillWill]

Curious as to why you centrifuge it out? It's been found to be entirely harmless, except for a few extremely rare allergies.... but this is the stuff that pill capsules are made of. A person would have to have never taken a pill before to not know. It's used in a lot of medical applications as well.

I thought it made you a bit ill? Also, we don't filter the beer, so it's also to clean it up nicely as that stuff doesn't drag everything out of suspension to to point where it can be dumped out of the bottom of the tank.

 

[AiredAle]

I believe most capsules are made of gelatin not silica hydrogel, which is a finely divided solid consisting of silicon dioxide. It is used as a dessicant, and in beer it complexes with haze particles, so that they grow bigger and settle out faster.

 

[Cambone]

If your want to get really healthy, you can become a Level 5 vegan. I hear they don't eat anything that casts a shadow....

nice obscure simpsons reference

 

[emjay]

obscure simpsons reference

that's an oxymoron if I ever saw one...