08 August 2005

Secondary Stream?

Edited: US Rice link replaced with one that doesnt need a subscription after 24 hours!

What do you suppose is worse:
  • finding out that the local river is full of cocaine, or
  • finding out it got there from users' urine, pumped straight into the river from the sewage system?
People in the Po Valley in Italy (now there's a pun there somewhere, if you know English slang) have had to face just this discovery. Here's the news which closes with a report that the team responsible for this diagnosis are looking for ways to measure the heroine in the water, also. Knowing how many people are in the area allows them to calculate the true quantities consumed prior to the waste, um, going down the Po.

Still it beats poor America - finding out that US rice has the highest arsenic content, courtesy of residual chemical soil treatments.

Great. Its in the tap water, it can turn up in seafood, table salt and beer. Now, apparently, if you consume 500 grams of American rice a day, its definitely in you too, most likely at higher than the maximum recommended levels.

Eat American rice? Feel increasingly tired and foggy? Might be time to detox.

14 comments:

Chris Cope said...

In Nevada they use arsenic to extract gold from the earth. Unfortunately, that arsenic doesn't breakdown and stays in the water supply. We learned after having lived there that if you drink more than two liters of the local water in your lifetime, your cancer chances increase. And there are people in America who think the concept of pollution is a liberal ploy.

Cheryl said...

Oi yuk

I hope you have a high fibre diet - it absorbs the heavy metals and helps to shift the stuff.

Flip - what do you boil potatoes in, or wash up or bath in?

Scary.

Ms Mac said...

This kind of thing teamed with your supermarket secrets is enough to send me teetering on the edge of OCD!

Bart Treuren said...

good post, said much needing saying... and don't forget the arsenic in much treated wood, especially used in childrens playgrounds in the past... if you're into environmental issues and want solid, well documented articles, take a look here.

Cheryl said...

Bart - thankyou. Good resource - I had a look at the epigenetics article and will go back.

Ms Mac - me too! Still, just because you're paranoid it doesn't mean they're not out to get you.

In Revelation the instruction goes "but don't harm the oil and the grain."
Chupattis, anyone?

jane said...

the rice thing doesn't surprise me. our cell phone system is 18th in the world. our public education is down the toilet. we have cows with mad cow disease. our chickens have newcastle disease. almost everything in america is imported from china. but our government doesn't care about any of that. they want democracy in the middle east, dammit!

marlynn said...

Nothing surprises me anymore.
Witty blog. Michele sent me!

FattyPants said...

Mmmmmmmm rice. I am probably full of arsenic :) And michelle sent me!!!!!!!!!!!

Le laquet said...

Oh god! Sounds foul ... and I can't live without rice! And the whole river Po thing always cracks me up!

fineartist said...

Local American crack head, meth head or coke head:
"WoW there's coke in the water from other users urine? I'm feeling mighty thursty, and besides, what's a little urnine intake compared to all the crap they cut, or make our dope with?."

Sick ya, but some would be drinking that PO water here.

Rice, say it aint so. Damn.

Thanks for the information Cheryl, and yes I agree with you and Jane, the priorities are skewed. The most we can do is to try and keep up.

Star said...

I eat a lot of brown rice, I will have to look into all of this. In the meantime I apparently have something to blame for being confused and less than productive at work.! Michele sent me.

Cheryl said...

Thanks!
I hope I have returned comments on everybody's blogs - except Janet.

Janet, your profile page won't let me on your blog, so thank you, from here. :-)

Anonymous said...

Hello Michele sent me! I think that finding out it got there from users' urine, pumped straight into the river from the sewage system?is WAY worse than finding out that the local river is full of cocaine.

Arethusa said...

Hello Cheryl, Michele sent me too.

I was actually eating some SALMON while reading this...so...sufffice it to say, I'm not too hungry now. lol