Processed Chocolate Contains Dangerous Lead Concentrations, Study Says/ HARD ROCK MUSIC CREATES KILLER MICE!

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Processed Chocolate Contains Dangerous Lead Concentrations, Study Says Connie BennettNovember 17, 2005

 

 

 

 

This item first appeared in my SUGAR SHOCK! Blog.

As if the sugar content wasn't enough reason to stay away from processed chocolate. Now, q new study, in Environmental Health Perspectives, reveals that chocolate can be contaminated with very high quantities of lead. What's interesting is that cocoa beans tested had an average lead concentration of < 0.5 ng/g, "one of the lowest reported values for a natural food," the study points out. But, by contrast, "lead concentrations of manufactured cocoa and chocolate products were as high as 230 and 70 ng/g."

In fact, a team of American and Nigerian researchers found that lead levels in raw cocoa beans were 60 times lower than lead levels observed in processed chocolate products, the Chicago Tribune reports.

Talk about a worrisome statistic.

Researchers suspect that this lead contamination doesn't come from the producer but rather during the shipping and/or manufacturing of the cocoa beans into cocoa and chocolate products.

For example, they speculate that one source of contamination of the processed, finished chocolates might be atmospheric emissions of leaded gasoline.

"Because of the high capacity of cocoa bean shells to adsorb lead, contamination from leaded gasoline emissions may occur during the fermentation and sun-drying of unshelled beans at cocoa farms."

Regardless of the source of contamination, "there is no excuse for a product that is about to be consumed by children to contain lead, period," Dr. John Rosen, a pediatrician and lead program director at Montefiore Medical Center in New York City, told the Chicago Tribune.

Lead exposure can be quite dangerous, particularly to children. For example, it can lead to permanent developmental deficits. High lead levels can harm a child's ability to think, plan, organize and memorize, Rosen explained. "And lower levels of lead may produce intellectual deficits that are with a child forever."

Yikes, this is scary.

But, as I stated previously, you can still reap chocolate's anti-oxidant and other benefits by eating raw cacao beans.

Furthermore, as popular physician Dr. Joseph Mercola.com points out, you also can "derive a majority of these benefits by consuming blueberries, apples and grapes, and most vegeetables, including broccoli, greens and onions.

Thanks to Mercola.com for the lead on this new study.

 

It's dove at first sight

http://www.metro.co.uk/news/article.html?in_article_id=65876 & in_page_id=34

 

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

 

 

All together now: Ahhhh

It's a tale straight out of Disney – an abandoned baby monkey, close to death, is revived by the love of a bird.

The 12-week-old macaque was rescued on Neilingding Island, in Goangdong Province, China, after being abandoned by his mother.

Taken to an animal hospital, he was weaned back to physical health but still showed little appetite for life.

It was not until a fellow patient, a white pigeon, took him under her wing and showed him love and affection that he perked up.

Now the two are inseparable, say staff.

They are not the first odd couple. In March, we told how a tiger cub in China was being raised by a sow along with her piglets because his mother didn't know how to feed him.

And in 2005 Mi-Lu the baby deer became best friends with lurcher Geoffrey at the Knowsley Animal Park, in Merseyside, after being rejected by her mother.

 

 

 

 

 

 

HARD ROCK MUSIC CREATES KILLER MICE!

http://www.relfe.com/hard_rock.html

 

 

 

 

 

David Merrell, a high school student from Suffolk, Virginia, has won top honors in regional and state science fairs for his experiment involving mice, a maze and hard-rock music.

After establishing a baseline of about 10 minutes for the mice to navigate the maze, David started playing music 10 hours a day, then put the mice through the maze three times a week for three weeks.

His findings: the control-group mice, which did not listen to any music, were able to cut five minutes off their time; the mice that listened to classical music cut 8.5 minutes off their time; and the mice that listened to hard-rock music took 20 minutes longer to navigate the maze.

David said, "I had to cut my project short because all the hard-rock mice killed each other … None of the classical mice did that at all."

Source: Washington Times, 2 July 1997.

UPDATE:

Scientists kill mice with Dance Music www.thisislondon.com/dynamic/news/top_story.html?in_review_id=470967 & in_review_text_id=424979

 

A kind visitor to this webpage tracked down the original document at http://www.newsherald.com/EDUCATION/ROCK86.HTM

If the above link is not there, we have a copy here