Idiot Killed By Coca~Cola

Today on the BBC there is a report of how one woman who reportedly drank up to ten litres of coca-cola a day has died of a cardiac arrest.
What a pity. 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-21423499

The woman in New Zealand drank so much of this shit that she had had most of her teeth extracted over the years and it had even prevented her unborn children from forming enamel on their teeth too. According to the article ten litres a day is twice the recommended daily caffeine intake and eleven times the recommended daily sugar intake. 

I guess in a way we ought to feel sorry for her as this was clearly some form of addiction or obsessive behaviour and friends and family should have taken it upon themselves to get her treated for this. As per usual there are some who are trying to blame Coca~Cola for the death, but I think it goes beyond reasonable risk assessments to assume someone out there would consume that kind of amount.

The media however should currently be doing their utmost to highlight the possible dangers of aspartame which is present in a wide range of products. It is an artificial sweetener used in diet-drinks and in most products labelled as 'no added sugar'. This would include products such as 'Diet Coke', Coke Zero, Pepsi Max, and many other products you possibly wouldn't consider such as Robinson's cordial juice which of course is generally the drink of choice by millions of children in the UK.

http://www.myfoxchicago.com/story/20939173/diet-soda-dangers-new-study-may-link-aspartame-to-cancer

http://www.naturalnews.com/011804_aspartame_NutraSweet.html

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8939194 (An old scientific report calling for review in '96.)

Despite these concerns, the European Food Safety Authority and the Food and Drugs Administration in the USA have both approved this substance fit for human consumption once again. The EU came to an agreement on this just last year in fact:

"On 8 January 2013, EFSA launched a public consultation on its draft scientific opinion on the safety of the artificial sweetener aspartame. To carry out this full risk assessment, EFSA has undertaken an in-depth review of peer-reviewed scientific and other literature on aspartame and its breakdown products, including new human studies. All stakeholders and interested parties are invited to comment on the draft opinion through the online public consultation by 15 February 2013. As part of this important process and the Authority’s commitment to actively engaging with stakeholders, EFSA will also hold a meeting with interested parties to discuss its draft opinion and the feedback received from the online public consultation. EFSA prepared a set of Frequently Asked Questions to help explain some of the key scientific concepts and initial conclusions of the draft opinion."
EFSA Website
 
Well as great as this sounds there is still some cause for concern with regards to this little compound. The biggest concern being the links to Monsanto. 
As Monsanto deserves an article in its own right, check the wiki page for a general idea:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto (Pay particular attention to the 'political contributions and lobbying' section.)
Monsanto sold the Aspartame rights to Merisant in 2000, who have now sold to a group which now includes PepsiCo. But Merisant was brought by shareholders who already had stakes in Monsanto before, so it can hardly be said that the financial interests behind Monsanto are not still with the new owners. 
Long story short, Monsanto and other GM and artificial food producers are getting into bed with politicians and getting campainers to support untested food to the public through Governments. Bribery and officials 'looking the other way' are rife.

Here is just one such example which was reported. 
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4153635.stm 



The other concern to do with soft-drinks are energy drinks of which Monster Energy has recently come under scrutiny with after some deaths had some links with the consumption with their drinks. 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/9627491/Monster-energy-drink-investigated.html

The owner of the company  Rodney Sacks claimed the people who were trying to claim for damages were 'scientifically ignorant' for suggesting these deaths had anything to do with his beverages. Well no mate, this is why departments are currently reviewing your product to see if scientifically these claims have any basis.

In any case would you trust ingredients like these: l-carnitine, sorbic acid, benzoic acid, niacinamide, glucuronolactone, inositol, , pyridoxine, hydrochloride, sucralose, riboflavin, maltodextrin, cyanocobalamin

If it needed a laboratory to create its probably not the best thing to be knocking back with your Jäger.

 

Global Warming Made The Dinosaurs!

This is an old story from way back in 2010 but I found the link through a new story on the BBC news site.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8580444.stm

In this article scientists reported that there may be a link between apparent sudden global temperature rises caused by volcanic activity and the dinosaurs rise to become the most successful group of land animals the Earth has ever seen. Apparently this was caused by 'global warming', which killed off the large primitive reptiles which dominated before hand allowing the dinosaurs a window of opportunity.

So the BBC, usually the flag carrier of state propaganda posts information which flies in the face of global warming fears. Surely if cosmological or geological influences can adjust temperatures and carbon dioxide levels in the age of the dinosaurs, it can still happen today? Right?

Temperature variations happen, continue to happen, and until this planet is either vaporized or turned into a ball of ice and thrown off into outer-space, will always happen.

There is this strange idea that has somehow got into the minds of everyone in society, including scientists on the payroll of Government agencies, that the planet must stay the same. Historical evidence flies in the face of such ridiculous assertions.

Look back at periods of British weather. The Neolithic period was warm and wet, one of the main reasons that farming techniques were able to be brought into Northern Europe.
Then there was the 'Warm Medieval Period'. This period was warm enough in England to grow vineyards for the Roman occupation. In fact it was this warm period which enabled large viking settlements on Greenland and the finding of Vinland (or Canada as we now call it) by so called uncivilized Danish brutes. Of course this doesn't mean that the weather stayed nice enough for them to stay there.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/11/101123-native-american-indian-vikings-iceland-genetic-dna-science-europe/

http://archive.archaeology.org/online/features/greenland/

Vikings travelled to America and Greenland in Longboats.

Ironically today we have the worlds media doing the rounds about 'extreme cold weather fronts' whatever that means. Of course the idea is to try and trick those of us with short memories into believing we are all going to die relatively soon of some kind of climatic disaster. In some roundabout way, 'climate change' can either be attributed to any kind of weather, be it hot or cold. This latest cold snap in the UK however is nothing compared to the arctic winter felt almost two hundred years ago in 1814 when the Thames froze over and there were entire carnivals pretty much held on the ice.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_Thames_frost_fairs


Of course there may be a negative side to all this. I mean, if global warming really did create dinosaurs (like global warming to reptiles is like that radioactive spider to Peter Parker) we could theoretically be creating Godzilla right now.

World Overpopulation? Hakuna Matata!

There are many who choose to keep putting their fingers in their ears when confronted with the facts about over-population.

It is a complex issue because there is no clear line between ecological balance and dystopian dictatorship, try as we might, a compromise is impossible because there are too many varying factors to consider when telling people how many children they may or may not have in a life time.

There are more and more celebrities, famous ecologists and certain 'royal' families who tell us we need reduce population to save the planet. When you look at the facts, you can't help but agree with them, however there is point that the world leaders need to re-think their strategies and think about human costs. Which of course they never do because they are families of inbred psychopaths. Literally.
There is more and more evidence to support the claim that chemicals such as BPA (which I've already spoken at length about previously) fluoride and suspicious concoctions added to vaccinations (especially in the third world, thanks Bill Gates) are already been used to reduce fertility and slowly sterilise the worlds population. Sounds extreme, by how else would you explain the fact that twenty year olds now in many cases have the fertility of a forty-something year old. More importantly, why would entire Indian and African villages be sterilised without actually being told what they are having done? Human costs and actual solutions need to both be taken into consideration, the acts committed by the likes of Western Governments such as the UK and corporations blatantly linked to secret agendas such as Microsoft's Bill Gates are abhorrent but should not deter us from finding proper answers to the issues.

The argument made by those who believe the worlds population can go on forever (many of those are blinded by religious scriptures who still cling to the mantra of 'go forth and multiply' and take it literally) feel threatened when the idea of resource control is brought up. How do these people then expect ten, twelve or twenty billion people to live on a planet in the near future which right now is currently being ripped to pieces by the current seven billion or so inhabitants. You can't have your cake and eat it. However if you are one of these people who believes that the world population can continuously expand, you have no worries. Hakuna Matata!

Our friends Timon and Pumbaa know all about the no-worries life style, and so I'm sure you'll be fine with their eating habits too, right?

You know, grubs, aphids, ants. Delicious right? No?

The European Union thinks otherwise. They recently gave €3 million in grants to projects to try and find ways of getting the public to find the idea of eating insects (a more or less infinite supply of protein) more....palatable.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/8739313/Roasted-crickets-and-toasted-ants-coming-to-you-courtesy-of-EU-research-millions.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2033606/EU-spends-2-5m-encouraging-people-eat-insects.html

At first I was digusted by the idea of eating insects, and then secondly I was angry at the EU for wasting my tax money on this project which is essentially designed as propaganda to try and convince us to eat less energy-intensive meat sources, but then of course there are worse ideas:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-16972761

Scientists are currently attempting to grow completely artificial meat in a lab. So far they have only succeeded at growing very small amounts (to the tune of £200,000 per burger) but realise that the meat will have very little flavour and will need artificial flavouring to make it edible.

Both of these choices seem bad, but if I were to choose one, the witchery grub wins hands down. Why? Well because despite my first angry reaction towards the EU for using my money on this project, it actually makes sense. People, including myself, eat crabs, shrimp and prawns. What really is so different about eating their land-borne cousins? In a world which in our life-times will likely reach nine-billion souls, it really makes sense to begin changing our attitude towards food. For too long we in the West have relied on eating parts of the animals which 'look nice'. Whats worse, the parts we are often too squeamish about eating such as heart and kidneys etc are often the most nutritious parts, and they simply go to waste half the time. As a side note, many insects such as meal worms, witchery grubs and crickets have been eaten in other areas in the globe traditionally and are incorporated into local dishes. It needn't be just a survival staple. Of course it is not just consumers who need to change our behaviors, supermarkets play a big role in how food is being wasted (along with sell-by-dates which serve no purpose if you are intelligent enough to know what something which is past its best smells like.

 The added bonus to both these ideas however is animal rights. No one wants to know their hamburger came from animals that lived in shocking conditions only to be brutally murdered in a row like something out of the holocaust. Insects lack any form of intelligent thought, so we shouldn't feel too guilty about eating those, and well, the lab meat is a completely victimless crime, its just that its ethically abhorrent against nature. Having said that, blood donering was at the time of its invention seen as ethically wrong too, so who knows, if it can be proven safe then I personally see no logical issue. Its just morals that will take a few generations to change.

There are no easy answers for the problems humanity is about to face. It will require us to change the way we think.  When I first read and heard about these two articles I was very angry, but when you consider the alternative, you have to be prepared to adapt your perception. If we are not going to make the difficult choices now and help control population (by this I mean through education and through improving the lives of the most vulnerable both at home and in the third world) then we must begin to consider how we are all going to live at all.

 

 

Slimy, yet, satifying.