There is no such thing as a "safe food"

This A1, A2 milk thing is raising its head again. The SST has an article about the lack of research into the health effects of drinking A1 milk as opposed to A2, purportedly a possibly increased risk of heart attack and diabetes.

Maybe it does carry the claimed risk, maybe not. To find out with 100% certainty would be very very hard and expensive because whatever affect on health  the difference between the  drinking A1 versus A2  milk has, it is obviously minute.

And who is to say that while drinking A2 milk may indeed slightly lower the risk of heart disease and diabetes that it doesn't  slightly increase the risk of bladder cancer for example? It  is just that nobody has made that claim yet but it could for all anyone knows.

There is only one certainty in life and that is it is finite and while there are obvious things that if eaten will have an immediate negative effect (deadly nightshade for example) the majority of the food we eat has been tried and tested by generations of people without  detrimental effect in the short term.

And while on the subject of deadly nightshade it is a member of the Solanaceae family of plants. A lot of our favorite foods are derived from plants of this family, tomatoes, capsicums and the humble potato.

Tobacco and datura are also from this family and they are considered bad things to consume, with some reasoning and experience to back this up.

And we also know that there are some people who cannot tolerate tomatoes because they are poisonous, as are potatoes. The thing is most of us can handle the toxins in tomatoes and potatoes without any obvious immediate effect other than receiving nourishment. Who knows what the long term effects of the  toxins they contain are? Nobody thats who.

The  truth is  we live in a toxic environment and we age and die, Part of the aging process is almost certainly a result of the toxins in the food we eat and another part due to other environmental hazards, ultra violet rays from the sun and cosmic rays etc.

And some of the toxic substances we consume in our food are actually vital for our good health and well being. Selenium is poisonous but we need it in our diet. We also need exposure to ultra violet light for our body chemistry to function normally even though it can harm us and cause cancer.

We could spend our entire GDP on researching the long term consequences of consuming the food we eat and take for granted and not "save a single life" because everybody is going to die of something sometime.  Nor would such research be particularly useful because everybody's biochemistry is subtly or sometimes not so subtly different, which explains why while most people can safely eat tomatoes there are a few that can't.

I'll tell you one thing,  Tomatoes⁽¹⁾ and potatoes first appeared in the diets of Europeans in the 16^th century when they were bought back from the new world. And if they had had public heath authorities with the same mindset as those we have today,  they would have probably banned them as unsafe because of the toxins they contain. 

As it is potatoes have become a staple of our diet and have kept us fed for generations.

Which is a good thing on balance.

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(1) Tomatoes were not generally eaten until much later, around about the 19^th century. Which might explain why there are not many people, if any, allergic to potatoes but there are some who are to tomatoes. 

People  with   "potato allergies" died out years ago.

Comments

[Andrew Davies]

As my father always used to say "nothing will kill you quicker than food", usually as he gobbled another greasy chop or slathered more cream on his porridge.

[Johnny]

Wuts so good about praties, theve filled the world wit de Oirish bastards so they have!

[Lucyna]

I would like both my kids to be able to try A2 milk (but I can't get it here, or I haven't seen it) as they are both allergic to the milk protein in normal milk.

[david w]

Lucyna,

There is no reason to think, and certainly no evidence supporting the idea, that A2 is any better for people, like myself, that are allergic to milk protein. There is still casein in a2 milk, and the slightly different protein involved doesn't appear to make a difference

[Acid Comments]

Same thing with Garlic. It's touted as a 'healthfood', but is a known neurotoxin.

[John Boy]

Tomatoes were believed to be poisonous for a long time in Britain but the poison was related to pewter plates rather than tomatoes. Being upper class has disadvantages.

[nt]

It's certainly appropriate to ask whether A2 milk might carry its own dangers, but the science behind A1/A2 would suggest not. It is now well established scientifically that the problem about A1 is that in the digestive process it produces a tiny but harmful fragment (BCM-7). This fragment (called "the devil in milk" in Keith Woodford's recent book) can escape through the gut wall of some individuals and get into the bloodstream. A2 milk does not produce this fragment.

Lucyna, the A2 people say they don't think their milk should overcome milk allergy, although anecdotal reports suggest that in a few cases it seems to.

nt