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til Today I Learned @lemmy.world
cyrano @lemmy.dbzer0.com

til chips contain a known carcinogen, acrylamide

The US potato industry brings in US$240 million annually, and demand for taters in all their wonderful processed shapes and sizes is year-round. As such, a certain amount of stock in season is sent to cold storage to supply the demand. However, thanks to a normal biological function in the root vegetable, low temperatures trigger a mechanism that converts starches to sugars. When processed, these tubers that have experienced cold-induced sweetening (CIS) appear darker when cooked.

Unfortunately, it's more than potato-skin deep, as this darkened chip is a crispy red flag – it indicates elevated levels of acrylamide, a chemical that has been associated with increased cancer risk due to its carcinogenic properties.

31 comments

  • I'm fucking losing my god damn shit over here.

    In 2023 I was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. I beat it, but it is still a daily presence in my life. I had to COMPLETELY upend my entire lifestyle.

    I was what I would call an "events alcoholic". By that, I don't mean I'd drink everyday. I'd drink when an event would happen. Go to baseball? Drink. Watch a wrestling show? Drink. That's mostly it, but you gotta remember wrestling was on twice a week every week. Three times on ppv weeks.

    And I'd go HARD. I mean I'd drink 20-30 beers and half a bottle of jack (usually mixed with coke).

    And so when I got cancer, the doctor goes over what likely things cause cancer. At the top of that list is drugs and alcohol. Well drugs were never my thing. So I can rule that out. Alcohol however, I immediately said "That's probably what did it."

    So I gave up drinking. I gave up wrestling mostly. I only watched baseball sober. Which is an entirely different feel. Instead of being a slow lazy sport where you just relax and talk with your buddies, it becomes either a frantic sport where every pitch matters, or a boring depressing sport where nothing matters because it's 18-3. No really, I attended a game that was literally 18-3. It felt like even if we got 3 grand slams in a row it would still be hopeless.

    And I found something out real quick. I don't have friends. I have people who enjoy getting drunk with me. I haven't had a friend over my apartment since I got sober.

    So that's depressing.

    And then the doctor says another huge culprit of cancer among younger people, is beef. As in, I can't have cheeseburgers anymore. People judge me for how hard I was drinking. In reality, that was never my addiction. That's just what you do when you're with friends. They're drinking, you're drinking. One day you realize it's a lot, but you don't want to ruin anybodys time, so, you drink again.

    But really? MY addiction is cheeseburgers. Bacon double cheeseburgers. With gooey melty cheese flowing down the sides like a delicious waterfall. Topped with lettice, and just a dab of ketchup. Don't overdo the ketchup. The ketchup is not the star here. The ketchup is barely a bit player in this ensamble. In fact, if the ketchup were missing entirely? Well, it's not like the bacon is gone!

    I'd have cheeseburgers 2-5 times a week. If I do have an addiction problem, it's cheeseburgers and fast food. That has been so much harder to get rid of in my life. I haven't faltered and gone back to alcohol for almost 2 years. But I have had some guilt filled cheeseburgers where the woman at red robin is afraid to ask if everything is ok as I cry while stuffing my face. Knowing that what I'm doing in that moment would let everybody down that helped me as I beat cancer. Addiction is hard, ok? I'm not proud of what I did.

    And so when I was sitting at home, I decided to take advantage of baseballs hidden gem deal in Cleveland. $50 standing room only. Every home game for a month. Not $50 per game. $50 for roughly 13-17 home games depending on the month, rain delays ect. I wasn't working. I got a bus pass, and a baseball pass, and took advantage of the fact that nobody goes to most games. So I can sit almost wherever. The ushers cared if you sat in the expensive seats, but didn't hassle you up top. And if you accidently took someones seat, appologize, and move on. Had that happen like twice in 2 months. It was fine.

    Well on the way to the stadium is a candy shop. I thought "instead of beer, maybe I find a cheap candy to eat." So I bought a pez dispenser, and a 10 pack of pez.

    Well that, combined with liveposting on reddit /r/ClevelandGuardians game day threads was a distraction for me. And it became a running joke that every time I ate grape pez, Josh Naylor would do something big, like hit a home run. So that became a whole big thing. And we had a player Miles Straw who NEVER hit a home run. So every time he came to bat, I'd post in the live thread "Here it comes! Straw's famous home run! He does it everytime! I'm telling you! He's famous for it! Just watch!" And every time he'd strike out. Or ground out. Occasionally would get a single at most. Amazing outfielder. Terrible batter.

    And so one day, I was so so so very sick. I was in pain. I was depressed. I didn't go to the stadium. I didn't even watch on tv. I just stayed in bed. Cancer drugs take a toll. Don't get cancer, guys. 0/10 don't reccomend.

    Well next day I get to the stadium. I'm bs'ing in the live thread. I make my usual Straw home run remarks. I'm laughing, and see the reply "Well not every day can be yesterday." I said "....what?" THIS MOTHERFUCKER HAS NOT HIT A SINGLE GOD DAMN HOME RUN IN 2 YEARS, WAITS UNTIL I MAKE LITERAL DAILY JOKES ABOUT IT FOR 2 MONTHS STRAIGHT, AND THEN HITS ONE ON THE ONE DAY I'M NOT WATCHING!!! If I ever meet him, I'm going to laughingly give him shit for that. Everybody on the live thread was giving me shit for missing it. I'm STILL pissed. I'm laughing, but fucking hell man!

    And so I ate so much pez that summer. I never liked grape. I only got it since it came in the variety pack, but now I had to eat the grape pez everytime Naylor was at bat. It was a whole thing.

    Well......come to find out a few weeks ago that red dye #3 is known to cause cancer AND HAS BEEN KNOWN TO DO SO SINCE THE MOTHERFUCKING GOD DAMN 1980S, AND THE GOVERNMENT ONLY JUST NOW PUTS A BAN IN PLACE THAT WON'T BE IN EFFECT UNTIL 2027! No, I'm NOT joking. Try to guess what's listed on the pez ingredients list, that I've been eating for 2 damn years now AFTER beating cancer. So now I don't eat pez.

    And so another thing I enjoy snacking on is potato chips. I wouldn't call it an addiction, but they are a regular staple of my snacking variety and have been since I was a kid. Now I see THIS post.

    I tell ya. I am losing my shit, ok? I am losing my god damn mind, where I go to consume things, and 95% of my diet is like "oh, you can't have that. That gives you cancer."

    I knew the foods weren't healthy. I thought they just made you fat. I was ok with being fat. I accepted myself decades ago. I didn't know they gave you cancer! Like there's a huge step between "you'll gain weight" and "you'll shit blood and your organs will grow tumors requiring surgury". HUUUUUUGE leap between those two realities.

    And then, to top it off, I had a day where I rang a bell. And the nurses recorded it. And my family couldn't be there, because they work. And my friends couldn't be there because they don't exist. But at least I could take my video, bring it to /rClevelandGuardians and post it there. The one group of people who I connected with during surgury, and recovery, and I talked to as I sat for 8 hours getting an IV of medicine. I could post this video there, and it would be special!

    Autobot has banned you from reddit for personal attacks against users.

    What? What attacks?

    It's a thread about a guy who got his bike stolen. He posted a picture of the guy, and the bike. I replied "Same thing happened to me 30 years ago. Looks like the same guy. Maybe the guy who stole my bike had a kid, and now it's a family business."

    That's a personal attack against reddit users according to autobot. Repeals were denied. So now I lost all my reddit friends.

    And that's where I stand right now. Losing everything I love, because apperently cancer runs my life. Every food, every activity, everything I love runs back to cancer, and NOW I have to give up potatoe chips too.

    And now today I read that "light car pollution causes cancer". I live in the city, and work at an airport. What the fuck do you want from me, life???

    Ya know what? I'm just going to go live in the river, and grow kale, and become a merman. I'm seriously at my wits end here. Every day I lose something in my life. All I have left is video games. Which I don't have time to play.

    Oh, and on top of all this, I'm probably losing my health insurance. My grandma died, left me an inheritance, and apperently that qualifies as assets which will disqualify me from medicaid.

    goes and cries in a corner

    • Jesus, man. I don't know what it's worth to you but I at least read the whole thing. You seem like an alright person who's just been punted around by the failures of the US to care for its own: hiding carcinogen information, making unhealthy food the economical/convenient choice, not to mention I'm sure that navigating the health care system was a nightmare.

    • solid rant.

      as to your thing with the addiction to this and that, you hafta learn to hate that crap; it comes naturally to me, so there's not much effort needed.

      so when you hate alcohol and burgers and cigarettes and whatnot and especially the industry that produces it cutting every corner to make more money and their advertising henchmen masking every turd with sprinkles and cinnamon, then you're no longer in the "I'm depriving myself of the thing I want", every time you think of it a flood of anger and rage splashes over you and you simply don't want none of that crap, ever.

      works for me, your mileage may wary.

    • Glad that you beat cancer man. I can only imagine how incredibly tough this must be for you. It sounds like your whole world has been turned upside down, and it's like everything you love is being taken away from you. I can sense the desperation and frustration in your words, and my heart goes out to you. It's completely understandable to feel overwhelmed and lost right now.

      • It sounds like your whole world has been turned upside down, and it’s like everything you love is being taken away from you.

        Oh, you have no idea. I didn't even go too deep on losing my Grandma. I at least understood losing her. It made logical sense. She has always been my hero in life, but she was also 103. Which I'll nonironically say is still too young to lose someone of her wit and presence. It's always too early to lose your hero. But again, my brain processed why it happened.

        What my brain is struggling with is everything I mentioned in the initial post, and other stuff that wasn't related so I didn't mention it.

        For example, in pro-wrestling there is a move called the Lariat. There is a similar but different move known as the Clothesline. And most people just think of the two as the same thing. They look strikingly similar to the point that even commentators on the show mess it up, or use the terms interchangeably. The move is performed when one wrestler is running at another wrestler. The attacking wrestler uses his arm to club the other in the chest, and he falls down. Now, the difference is, a Lariat has Latino history dating back to the mexican wrestling days of the late 1890s. A Lariat is where you the attacker use your momentum to strike your opponent. This YOU are the one causing the clubbing of the chest.

        A clothesline actually gets it's history from the north east wrestling background of the 1920s. It uses the momentum of your opponent to club his own chest using your extended arm. You hold out your arm stiff, your opponent runs into it, and that's it. That's a clothesline. You don't move your arm, but with a Lariat you would.

        Now, with all that said, keep in mind that everything I've just said, the history lesson, the differentiation between nearly identical looking moves, it all refers to a form of entertainment that is all centered around two athletic actors presenting a live stunt scene before an audience of thousands in attendance, and millions watching around the world. All to showcase a fake fight that is marketed heavily towards children, but demographically watched almost exclusively by men over the age of 40. And here I am presenting a difference so minute that 99% of people who view it have no idea there even IS a difference, including those that produce it. A wrestler by the name of JBL (John Bradshaw Layfield) uses the "Clothesline from Hell". Which infuriates me SO much, because his version is ALWAYS a Lariat. Most of the time, HE does the running, which makes his version a variation known as the STANDING Lariat.

        I could go on a smaller rant on my obsession with a literal 6 inch piece of rope attached to 2 of the 4 ring posts, and the purpose it serves, that everybody ignores. I could explain the difference in a ball bearing spring based ring vs a gridlock bar style ring and the differences it puts on wrestlers bodies. I could showcase how different companies use different materials for different rings. Or how the championship belt you see on TV isn't 1 belt, and the reasons why. I could explain the territory system, and the importance it's had on the entire industry which has lasting effects to this day despite being abolished over 40 years ago. I could talk your ear off all day about the smallest of topics of pro wrestling, and go suuuuuper in depth to beyond obsessed levels.

        So imagine how deep I've peeled that onion. And now realize that I don't even watch pro wrestling really anymore. I don't go to local shows. I just found out earlier today (so that would be Wednesday) that Monday Night Raw was 2 days ago in my home city of Cleveland. I didn't even know.

        So imagine how big of a hole in my own sense of being there is inside me. It feels like I don't know who I am. It feels like I outgrew something that was a massive part of my mentality, but I never replaced even a fraction of it with anything. It's just empty. I feel like less of me exists. That was why I spent 2 months almost daily at the ballpark watching baseball. I wanted to distract myself and get back to my roots. In the 90s, Carlos Baerga's sister used to live next door to me. And in 1994, Jacobs Field was opened. It's called Progressive Field now, but various remodels aside, it's the same building. I can still navigate that ballpark like Kenny Lofton is stealing 2nd at any time. It helps that Tom Hamilton is STILL the radio announcer for the now renamed Guardians. The only thing that's missing is that John Adams passed away during covid. The stadium doesn't sound the same without him. That stadium is my happy place. But I'm getting off topic.

        In 2016 the biggest donation and often said the single entity that financed the entire 2016 trump campaign was (now former) WWE owner Vince McMahon. Now Vince in recent years has been involved with a sex scandal that goes back to before I was born. It's the reason he's no longer involved with the company. He's been rightfully whitewashed of the company in much the same way Chris Beniot has been rightfully whitewashed of the company. But his fingerprints are still all over WWE. His son in law, who spent literal decades learning from him, and cites him as his biggest inspiration is the closest thing to Vinces old position. The company still employs MOSTLY the same people. This is not some new different WWE. This is the same company that financed trump, who even "owned" the company in 2009 (storyline, it was just because he was buddy buddy with Vince). The same company that has roots with trump dating back the the 80s. Two of the Wrestlemanias (I think 6 and 7) were from "Trump Plaza". I put that in quotes because the show sold poorly, and had to be moved to a smaller venue on the outskirts of trump plaza....but they still claimed it was trump plaza.

        And every time I try to watch WWE, I just feel dirty. I feel like I'm contributing to the problems we have in the world today. I know it's no longer the donation system it used to be, but my boycott started almost a decade ago. And I had been watching since the 80s.

        There's other things like that, but just imagine how big that was to me......and then not being able to enjoy it. And being told that YOU'RE the problem. That it's signs of depression. Which it may be, but also it's a feeling of guilt over having contributed SO MUCH MONEY over the decades that all went to trump in 2016. And I know it's crazy to think this way, but it makes me feel like I'm the problem causer in the world.

        And then I see all these people STILL supporting WWE, and ask them how they feel, and they separate the two. They support the idea of Chris Beniot going into the hall of fame, they don't understand why Martha Hart REFUSES to put Owen Hart into the hall of fame, and can't grasp the fact that the hall of fame doesn't mean shit. It's a tv show they put on once a year. That's it. Real life succeeds that.

        I'm sorry. I'm ranting. I just......AHHH!!! I needed to vent. And I don't have anybody to do that with.

    • Lemmy still loves you.

    • .

  • Its an assumed carcinogen as far as I can tell. There are no studies showing it causing cancer in humans, but they presume it might be a carcinogen due to the effect on rodents.

    However, a large number of epidemiologic studies... in humans have found no consistent evidence that dietary acrylamide exposure is associated with the risk of any type of cancer Source

  • Acrylamide is a nasty neurotoxin. Look at old protein biochemists and their hands all shake from years of making SDS-PAGE gels without gloves.

31 comments