This is Improbable Too Page 16
The authors, Josef Heckmann, Christoph Lang, Hermann Stefan and Bernhard Neundörfer, of the department of neurology at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg in Germany, tell the story of a sixty-one-year-old woman who visited her work canteen for lunch with a male colleague. ‘The colleague was greatly astonished to see the woman, a passionate vegetarian, order a sausage with curry sauce. Furthermore, during conversation, he noticed that she was a little confused, although she was able to walk and carry her tray without difficulty. Because of the woman’s changed behaviour, her colleague arranged a transfer to a hospital for her.’
Heckmann, Lang, Stefan and Neundörfer ran tests, and diagnosed this as a previously unsuspected case of non-convulsive status epilepticus, a form of epilepsy that can lead to coma and other bad states. They gave her medicine to prevent further seizures.
When a sausage induces a visit to hospital, most commonly it is food poisoning that drives the action. But occasionally, the cause and effect are mechanical. A sausage can get stuck on the journey from mouth to stomach, and sometimes does.
Such a case was reported in 2001 at James Paget hospital in Great Yarmouth. As reported by O.N. Enwo and M. Wright in the International Journal of Clinical Practice, under the headline ‘Sausage Asphyxia’: ‘a case of supraglottic impaction of the larynx by a piece of sausage occurred in our hospital; the patient was semiconscious. It was managed successfully by a carefully timed laryngoscope blade being inserted into the mouth without the aid of sedative drugs’.
There is some tendency for these cases to occur, or at least to be written up when they occur, in Germany and Austria. One fairly typical report was published in the medical journal Medizinische Klinik in 2009 about a seventeen-year-old fellow in Regensburg, Germany, who had a Wiener sausage in his oesophagus.
Occasionally, the mechanical problem occurs elsewhere than in the digestive tract. Austria supplied a new, perfect amplifier for the old saying ‘you don’t want to know how the sausages are made’. The June 2006 issue of the journal Wiener Klinische Wochenschrift [the Central European Journal of Medicine] featured a photo-illustrated report, from the city of Linz, called ‘Finger Amputation by a Sausage Packing Machine’.
Heckmann, Josef, Christoph Lang, Hermann Stefan, and Bernhard Neundörfer (2003). ‘The Vegetarian Who Ate a Sausage with Curry Sauce’. Lancet Neurology 2 (1): 62.
Enwo, O.N., and M. Wright (2001). ‘Sausage Asphyxia’. International Journal of Clinical Practice 55 (10): 723–4.
Gäbele, Erwin, Esther Endlicher, Ina Zuber-Jerger, Wibke Uller, Fabian Eder and Jürgen Schölmerich (2009). ‘Impaction of a “Sausage Bread” in the Oesophagus: First Manifestation of an Eosinophilic Oesophagitis in a 17-Year-Old Patient’. Medizinische Klinik 104 (5): 386–91.
Huemer, Georg M., Harald Schoffl and Karin M. Dunst (2006). ‘Finger Amputation by a Sausage Packing Machine’. Wiener Klinische Wochenschrift 118 (11/12): 321.
May we recommend
‘Hot Potatoes in the Gray Literature’
by Brian Pon and Alan Meier (published as Recent Research in the Building Energy Analysis Group, 1993)
Mincing vegetarianism, not words
Vegetarianism – the wanton ingestion of nothing but non-meat – sometimes produces or provokes antipathy, hostility and disgust. Researchers have struggled to understand why. In 1945, as the Second World War was ending, US Army Major Hyman S. Barahal, chief of the psychiatry section of Mason General Hospital in Brentwood, New York, issued a report called ‘The Cruel Vegetarian’. Major Barahal began by explaining the word ‘vegetarianism’ for anyone who might be ignorant or confused: ‘It consists essentially in the exclusion of flesh, fowl and fish from the dietary.’
Major Barahal drew upon his own experience at having met, and endured the presence of, several vegetarians. ‘Their exaggerated concern over the welfare of animals betrays the utter contempt and hatred which they hold for the human race generally’, he reported. ‘As far as the present writer knows, no [previous] article has ever attempted to explain the psychology of a person who, of his own free will, becomes a fervent follower of the cult.’
Major Barahal preferred to mince vegetarians, rather then words. He cut directly to the meat of the matter: ‘The average vegetarian is eccentric, not only as regards his food, but in many other spheres as well. Careful observation of his views … will frequently reveal somewhat twisted and rather peculiar attitudes and prejudices. In short, the average vegetarian is not definitely “a lunatic”, but he certainly fringes on it.’ His report carries a footnote that says little but implies much: ‘This manuscript was prepared prior to the author’s entering military service and contains no material or conclusions gained from experiences in military service.’
Sixty years later, in 2005, Daniel Fessler of the University of California, Los Angeles, and three colleagues looked at the emotional tangle provoked in vegetarians by vegetarianism’s opposite number, meat eating.
Their treatise, called ‘Disgust Sensitivity and Meat Consumption: A Test of an Emotivist Account of Moral Vegetarianism’, appeared in the journal Appetite. It contrasts ‘moral vegetarians’, who ‘view meat avoidance as a moral imperative’, with ‘health vegetarians’, who ‘are upset by others’ meat consumption’. Fessler and his colleagues reached an emphatic conclusion: ‘moral vegetarians’ disgust reactions to meat are caused by, rather than causal of, their moral beliefs’.
The same year, 2005, the British Journal of Nutrition served up a French study called ‘Emotions Generated by Meat and Other Food Products in Women’, which includes a fairly rare occurrence of the phrase ‘low meat-eating women’: ‘As expected, the low meat-eating women felt more disappointment, indifference and less satisfaction towards meat than did the high meat-eating women. However, the low meat-eating women also stated other negative emotions such as doubt towards some starchy foods. The only foods that they liked more than high meat-eating women were pears and French beans.’
Researchers at the Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique, the Centre Européen des Sciences du Goût and the Laboratoire de Psychologie Sociale et Cognitive collaborated in (1) collecting photographs of pears, apples, rice, pasta, pizza, pound cake, turkey, rabbit, pork chops, offal and other kinds of food; and (2) gathering sixty French women; and then (3) exposing the latter to the former. The women’s reactions to those photos led the researchers to a conclusion that perhaps did not surprise them: the failure to eat lots of meat is ‘associated with specific negative emotions regarding meat and other foods’.
Barahal, Hyman S. (1946). ‘The Cruel Vegetarian’. Psychiatric Quarterly 20 (1 supplement): 3–13.
Fessler, Daniel M.T., Alexander P. Arguello, Jeannette M. Mekdara and Ramon Macias (2003). ‘Disgust Sensitivity and Meat Consumption: A Test of an Emotivist Account of Moral Vegetarianism’. Appetite 41 (1): 31–41.
Rousset, S., V. Deiss, E. Juillard, P. Schlich and S. Droit-Volet (2005). ‘Emotions Generated by Meat and Other Food Products in Women’. British Journal of Nutrition 94 (4): 609–19.
Call for opinions
In the years since Major Barahal’s report on the psychology of vegetarians, questions have been raised about the definition of ‘vegetarianism’ used as a basis of his incisive analysis. One question in particular has caused agony for the Annals of Improbable Research scientific survey team.
The Question: Typically, strict vegetarians avoid eating meat, but consider anything else to be fair game (so to speak). Biologists classify most bacteria as being neither animal nor vegetable. If offered a good home-cooked meal of baked, stuffed bacteria, what’s a strict vegetarian to do? Are strict vegetarians allowed to eat bacteria?
The Results: An initial survey, conducted in 1999, chewed on the matter. Respondents’ answers ranged from ‘In a 5-kingdom classification system, vegetarians are allowed to consume 80% of living things’ to ‘Their GI tracts should be purged of their microfauna… Then see how healthy they are’. In summary, 32 percent of respondents allowed b
acteria consumption and 32 percent did not, with 36 percent suggesting ‘other’ allowances.
Conclusions: Does this remain the state of this vego-bacterial matter? The Annals of Improbable Research team have been inspired by the January/February 2013 edition of the journal Gastrointestinal Cancer Research in which the editor-in-chief Daniel G. Haller issued ‘A Call for Opinions’. Haller opines: ‘Opinions from experts – however designated – remain important’ and ‘The worst ending to any editorial is “Further work needs to be done”.’ Further work needs to be done.
To propose your answer to the question, ‘Are strict vegetarians allowed to eat bacteria?’, please send by email:
a photograph that clearly provides evidence of (1) your standing as a vegetarian, carnivore or omnivore; (2) a good home-cooked meal, noting whether it was digested with or without bacteria
a current curriculum vita outlining your credentials as a scientist
a pithy statement hashing out your opinion and rehashing your expert qualifications, both culinary and scholarly.
Send to marca@improbable.com with the subject line:
BACTERIA DIGEST SURVEY
Scrutinized falafel
A study called ‘Effect of a Popular Middle Eastern Food (Falafel) on Rat Liver’ is available to the public. Focusing strictly on the medical consequences (for rats) of eating ‘chickpeas paste seasoned with garlic, parsley, and special spices, then deep fried in vegetable oil’, it’s a ten-page journey from delight to despair, and finally to indifference.
Sana Janakat and Mohammad Al-Khateeb of the Jordan University of Science and Technology in Irbid, Jordan, wrote the report. It somewhat enlivens the February 2011 issue of the journal Toxicological & Environmental Chemistry.
Janakat and Al-Khateeb start with some cheery praise: ‘Falafel is considered the most popular fried food by all socio-economic classes in most Middle Eastern countries. It is consumed for breakfast, dinner, or as a snack. Among low-income families and labourers it is consumed on a daily basis, due to its availability, relatively low price, and good taste.’
Then come several pages of unhappy news that lead to a depressing and technical conclusion: ‘Long-term consumption of falafel patties caused a significant increase in ALP [alkaline phosphatase], ALT [alanine transaminase], bilirubin level and increased liver weight/body weight ratio … This indicates that consumption of large amounts of falafel on daily basis might lead to hepatotoxicity.’
But wait! That’s not the end of the story.
Here’s what Janakat and Al-Khateeb say they did.
First they gathered falafel: ‘Frying oil samples and falafel patties were collected from 20 restaurants located in different socio-economic neighbourhoods from the city of Irbid.’ They homogenized the falafel, soaked it for twenty-four hours, filtered it through cheesecloth and centrifuged it. This produced the experimental material – concentrated falafel – with which they performed two experiments.
An explanation of how and which falafel was collected
The first experiment assessed the short-term effect of eating falafel, short term in this case meaning five days. Janakat and Al-Khateeb extracted the oil from some falafel patties, and force-fed it to some rats for the whole five days. Then they killed those rats, and did post-mortems to get at the livers. The livers (happily, in a sense) looked in pretty good shape. Thus, the report says, the short-term effects of eating falafel are pretty benign.
The second experiment aimed to clarify the long-term effect of falafel consumption. A fresh batch of rats got to eat lots of falafel – as much as they pleased, whenever they wanted it – for a month. That was their entire diet: falafel, falafel, falafel. Then they were killed. Here, the post-mortem results were ugly. The study intones that ‘long-term consumption of falafel patties (30 days) caused yellowish discoloration of the liver distinctive of liver necrosis’, suggesting that ‘the consumption of falafel as the sole source of nutrition for a long period of time … can generate a hepatotoxic effect leading to liver necrosis’.
That may sound like bad news, but apparently it’s not. The very next sentence – nearly the last thing said in the report – is this: ‘Falafel consumption in moderation and in conjunction with other food items or beverages containing high antioxidant levels can be considered as safe.’
Janakat, Sana M., and Mohammad A. Al-Khateeb (2011). ‘Effect of a Popular Middle Eastern Food (Falafel) on Rat Liver’. Toxicological & Environmental Chemistry 93 (2): 360–9.
Water tastes like water
Can people perceive the difference between bottled water and tap water? Two studies suggest that – at least in France and in Northern Ireland – water tastes like water.
A French research team ran a taste test of six different bottled mineral waters and six municipal tap waters. This was a collaboration between two scientific institutes (CNRS, the French National Centre for Scientific Research, and INRA, the National Institute of Agronomic Research) and Lyonnaise des Eaux, a company that manages many public water supplies.
The tasters were ‘389 persons from all over France’. The bottled waters were ‘chosen among the French bottled water available’. The tap waters were ‘from various regions of France, supplied by Lyonnaise des Eaux’. The team published their study in the Journal of Sensory Studies in 2010.
The researchers identified what they call the ‘three main tastes of water’ that can be found if one swigs a great variety of bottled and tap waters. These are ‘the bitterness of poor mineralised water, the neutral taste (associated with coolness) of water with medium mineralisation and the saltiness and astringency of highly mineralised water.’ The report concludes that ‘most consumers cannot distinguish between bottled water and tap water when the latter is chlorine-free’. But most is not all. The report goes on to say: ‘However, 36% of the subjects were found able to distinguish between tap water and bottled water.’
Five years earlier, in Belfast, Deborah Wells had run a similar test, with slightly more than one thousand people tasting water from several sources. These included ‘one of the UK’s most popular brands of still bottled mineral water (Evian, Danone Waters), distilled water (supplied by Queen’s University Belfast), and tap water (supplied to Belfast by the Water Service from the Silent Valley, Co. Down)’. Wells, a senior lecturer in psychology at Queen’s University, then wrote a report called ‘The Identification and Perception of Bottled Water’, which appeared in the journal Perception.
‘The findings from this study indicate that people cannot correctly identify bottled water on the basis of its flavour’, she declares. This ‘suggests that the currently high consumer demand for this beverage must be based on factors other than taste or olfactory perception’.
That thought was not entirely new.
In 2004, we awarded the Ig Nobel Prize in chemistry to the Coca-Cola Company of Great Britain. The company has long publicized the existence of a ‘secret formula’ for its signature cola beverage. The key ingredient is water. But that’s not what won them the prize. They were honoured for using advanced technology (mostly pumps) to convert ordinary tap water (obtained from Thames Water, in Sidcup) into Dasani, a pricey, water-filled bottle. It sold briskly – until news broke that Dasani was just bottled tap water.
But … it wasn’t ‘just’ bottled tap water. As the Guardian reported on 20 March of that year: ‘The entire UK supply of Dasani was pulled off the shelves because it has been contaminated with bromate, a cancer-causing chemical.’
Teillet, Eric, Christine Urbano, Sylvie Cordelle and Pascal Schlich (2010). ‘Consumer Perception and Preference of Bottled and Tap Water’. Journal of Sensory Studies 25 (3): 463–80.
Wells, Deborah L. (2005). ‘The Identification and Perception of Bottled Water’. Perception 34 (10): 1291–2.
In brief
‘Metal Detectors: An Alternative Approach to the Evaluation of Coin Ingestions in Children?’
by S.P. Ros and F. Cetta (published in Pediatric Emergency Care, 1992)
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Big belly data
Confident that no one would notice what he was doing, Michael Nicod spent months in the homes of families he did not know, making detailed notes about everything they ate. Nicod was performing research for Britain’s Department of Health and Social Security in 1974. He and his colleague, University College London professor Mary Douglas, wrote a report called ‘Taking the Biscuit: The Structure of British Meals’.
Nicod and Douglas wanted to identify what typical British persons see as the essential parts of their typical meals. The pair drew on their training as anthropologists: ‘We imagined a dietician in an unknown Papuan or African tribe wondering how to introduce a new, reinforcing element into tribal diet. We assumed that the dietician’s first task would be to discover how the tribe “structured” their food.’
Table 3 versus Table 5 from ‘Taking the Biscuit’. Say the authors: ‘It is no surprise to the native Englishman that the distinction between hot and cold is much valued in this dietary system.’
Nicod lived as a lodger with ‘four working-class families where the head was engaged in unskilled manual labour’, in East Finchley, Durham, Birmingham and Coventry. He stayed in each place at least a month, ‘watching every mouthful and sharing whenever possible’.
Nicod and Douglas express confidence in the obliviousness of the natives. ‘We reckon’, they write, ‘that after 10 days of such a discreet and incurious presence, the most sensitive housewife, busy with her children, settles down to her routine menus.’