Fear! Be afraid! What you have been eating your whole life is just awful for you! That’s the message Yahoo’s so-called “Healthy Living” column wants you to think. They trot out one “expert” per food item and have them tell you that the food causes cancer or infertility or some other thing you don’t want in your body.
The 7 foods experts won’t eat
How healthy (or not) certain foods are—for us, for the environment—is a hotly debated topic among experts and consumers alike, and there are no easy answers. But when Prevention talked to the people at the forefront of food safety and asked them one simple question—“What foods do you avoid?”—we got some pretty interesting answers.
Canned Tomatoes
The resin linings of tin cans contain bisphenol-A, a synthetic estrogen that has been linked to ailments ranging from reproductive problems to heart disease, diabetes, and obesity.
The expert: Fredrick vom Saal, PhD, an endocrinologist at the University of Missouri who studies bisphenol-A says “I won’t go near canned tomatoes.”
Microwave Popcorn
Chemicals, including perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), in the lining of the bag, are part of a class of compounds that may be linked to infertility in humans, according to a recent study from UCLA. In animal testing, the chemicals cause liver, testicular, and pancreatic cancer. Studies show that microwaving causes the chemicals to vaporize—and migrate into your popcorn. “They stay in your body for years and accumulate there,” says Olga Naidenko, PhD, a senior scientist for the Environmental Working Group.
Nonorganic Potatoes
Jeffrey Moyer, chair of the National Organic Standards Board says, “Try this experiment: Buy a conventional potato in a store, and try to get it to sprout. It won’t,” says Moyer, who is also farm director of the Rodale Institute (also owned by Rodale Inc., the publisher of Prevention). “I’ve talked with potato growers who say point-blank they would never eat the potatoes they sell. They have separate plots where they grow potatoes for themselves without all the chemicals.”
Conventional Apples
If fall fruits held a “most doused in pesticides contest,” apples would win. ”Farm workers have higher rates of many cancers,” Mark Kastel, former executive for agribusiness and codirector of the Cornucopia Institute, a farm-policy research group that supports organic foods says. And increasing numbers of studies are starting to link a higher body burden of pesticides (from all sources) with Parkinson’s disease. The solution: Buy organic apples. If you can’t afford organic, be sure to wash and peel them first.
Fear the reaper, all ye who eat these foods! Cancer! Parkinson’s! Infertility! Listen to the experts, most of whom are paid advocates for organic foods!
Personally, I have had lots of nonorganic potatoes sprout eyes on my watch.
Me too. That organic potatoe guy is full of cow fertilizer.