Dangerous Dining or Russian Roulette?

Raw milk seems decidedly wimpy compared to this. William Gurstelle comments on a London Daily Telegraph story that talks about a company raising a non-poisonous fuga at a fish farm in Japan. His post is titled “Fugu without tetrodoxin is like NASCAR racing without the possibility of crashes“. I wonder if those fish are even legal to sell in Ontario. But if they are, what a precedent for raw milk! Here’s an excerpt, from William’s post today on Boing Boing:

Would you like yours poisonous, or not? Photos: Boing Boing

“….. In my book “Absinthe and Flamethrowers”, there’s quite a bit of rumination upon why people purposefully [eat] dangerous foods. I’m not talking about foods that are just unhealthy like the 1400 calorie Hardee’s Monster Thickburger, but foods that do or might actually contain poison or biological hazards if not handled with precision and experience.

The list is surprisingly long and includes ackee (a Jamaican favorite,) pokeweed (a southern US boiled green,) and casu marsu (the fabled larva-laden cheese of Sardinian sheepherders.) But the tops among all is fugu, the sushi made from the flesh of the tiger pufferfish. Certain internal organs of the fish contains extravagant amounts of ultra powerful nerve poison tetrodotoxin, so one’s first meal with inexpertly prepared fugu sashimi is certainly one’s last.

Ontario farmer to develop volunteer guidelines for raw-milk production — according to the Montreal Gazette

La Belle Province is very much a land of farmers and foodies, so it’s no surprise that the Michael Schmidt raw milk story is getting ink in Quebec papers. This story by Linda Nguyen, is from the Montreal Gazette, a Canwest publication:

Michael Schmidt, shown here in a 2009 file photograph, was acquitted in an Ontario court of 19 charges of distributing raw milk and raw milk products. Photograph by: Brett Gundlock, National Post

“TORONTO — An Ontario raw-milk farmer, acquitted of all charges in a 16-year legal battle for running a cow-share program last month, will help establish voluntary guidelines for other farmers interested in the controversial industry.

The story of Layla and her perfect teeth — some cultural learnings from Africa

Layla's pearly whites

I had always imagined that the pioneering research of American dentist Dr. Weston A. Price would not be possible to replicate today. Now that western dietary influences have permeated so much of the world, where would you look for peoples who had not learned to eat sugar and white flour?

Dr. Price traveled the world in the 1930s to seek out primitive peoples with good teeth, and learn their ways of eating. He summarized his findings in the book “Nutrition and Physical Degeneration”. While Dr. Price was far from unique in attributing chronic degenerative diseases to wrong eating, his concept of right eating contrasts sharply with currently prevailing ideas about vegetarianism and veganism.