Acrylamide

I’ve had a healthy disregard for media fear-pandering for quite a while. After Bowling for Columbine, that disregard has deepened and hardened, as I watch the news with growing discomfort at the level of fear-peddling, and becoming somewhat immune to it.

That being said, the little bit about acrylamide last night on The National really got to me. I think it’s my Euro-centrism (you know, the adage that in all things progressive, Europe is better (despite much personal experience to the contrary, old idealism dies hard), but the fact that variuos European and even the US FDA has issued warnings, and even listed levels of this supposed carcinogen in various foods, while Canada has done nothing set me on edge. So I did a search, and came up quickly with a few dozen links, scientific, pop and media about the subject. Which has me thinking that a)Acrylamide is probably very bad for you b)There needs to be more research to back up the human-carcinogen claim, although the mouse-studies seems conclusive c)I should eat less McDonald’s d)I’m glad that McDonald’s fries are the only items listed here that I eat a fair amount of.

S’funny: before Leah, I never thought twice about what I was eating. She, a former gym-junkie, knows all sorts of health info about various foods, as well as various sources for whatever particular thing she’s looking for. So it’s slowly seeped into my conciousness too. This has resulted in my eating much healthier in general (my too-frequent excursions to McDonald’s a notable exception), as well as being much more aware of food-related news.