Nitrosamine generation

We live in convenient and highly efficient world, but that made it easy to poison ourselves too.

Nitrosamines have been known to natural farmers quite sometime. Not only ground leeching and contaminated water source, vegetables that we eat also tend to accumulate nitrate which turns into nitrosamines in our body. That's one of the reason many natural farmers do not use fertilizers both organic and chemical sources.

Nitrosamines are known toxins in human body. "Nitrosamines are also easily generated under strong acid conditions, such as in the stomach...." as de la Monte points out.

How much nitrate each type of vegetables accumulate under fertilized condition? Spinach is a well known one. Babies are sensitive to this. In Germany, many babies lost lives from eating spinach that contained high level of nitrate.

there is a correlation between increased fertilization and higher level of nitrate concentration found in vegetables like spinach.

Mr. Kimura of Natural Apple grower describes in his book about "rot test" that fertilized vegetables rot while natural (unfertilized) vegetables wilt and dry up or ferment.

Some natural farmers point out that there is correlation between nitrate level and rotting. I am not certain whether higher nitrate level will lead to quicker rotting. and it's not only nitrate that gets generated from fertilizer use, but many other chemicals are synthesized by plants.

When we look at herbal medicines used in oriental medicine, they value wild herbs more than cultivated herbs. Potency is obvious.

Home gardeners can find substantial difference in garden herbs like parsley and basil. When they are grown without fertilizers and only depend on rain water, close to wild harvest, although they do not grow as fast as fertilized ones and not as tender, but they almost have medicinal quality in their flavor.


http://www.j-alz.com/press/2009/20090706.html

Nitrosamines and Cancer Richard A. Scanlan, Ph.D.
Dean of Research Emeritus and Professor of Food Science
http://lpi.oregonstate.edu/f-w00/nitrosamine.html

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Green tea infused sake and avocado sashimi

Image
My favorite green tea and avocado combo is premium green tea infused sake and avocado sashimi.  Avocado is rich and creamy, and texture reminds me of toro, or fatty tuna and uni, or sea urchin. Mauna Kea Premium green tea is cold infused at room temperature for 5 hours in Kikusui junmai ginjo sake.  1 tablespoon (0.25oz) of green tea to 1/2 cup of this sake is a bit more than what I would use for brewing in hot water. I first got the idea of infusing green tea in alcohol from chemical analysis done at University of Hawaii, Hilo (UH Hilo).  They extracted and measured EGCg, Theanine and caffeine contents of green tea with boiling water, but what struck me was that their baseline concentrations of EGCg, Theanine and caffeine were extracted with methanol for 1/2 hour. MK premium Green extraction Theanine % Caffeine % EGCg % Boiling water 0.45% 0.35% 0.83% Methanol 0.11% 0.28% 1.73% High level of EGCg makes alcohol extraction bitter? Methanol extraction showed high level of
Read more

Tea, Pests, Disease and Pesticides, Hidden truth of unknown cause.

We hear quite a few incidence of pesticide contamination from Chinese tea.  One might wonder what is really happening with tea grown in China or anywhere else.  I remember a lot of farmers in Japan telling me that tea always attracts pests, and pesticides and tea are always inseparable.  Although it sounds like a reasonable excuse for tea farmers, but I believe there is much deeper cause of this tea, pest and disease relationship. Tea, pests, disease and pesticides are almost always big topics among tea farmers.  Because there are pests and disease, farmers have to spray or else they lose the crop or the harvest will be heavily damaged.  So the farmers go out and spray once, twice, three times.... and on and on until they are through with their annual cycle.  In Japan, some tea farmers brag about only spraying 5-6 times in one year.  They are considered eco-farmers. In my past 7 years of tea cultivation, there has never been a time I had to spray.  Should I say, I intentionally let
Read more

Red Bean Bread - anko remix

Image
I was going to make anko from azuki red beans and honey or cane sugar, but I didn't cook beans long enough so that it was still crunchy. Generally it gets soft all the way much like re-fried bean. Anyway, instead of using this red bean chunky mush as anko, or red bean filling in a bun, I mixed it in a dough. Here is the recipe. 4 cups flour (3:1 ratio of white and whole wheat) 1 1/2 cups water 1/2 tablespoon commercial yeast or use your own yeast culture 2 teaspoon salt 1/2 cup olive oil 1 cup chunky red bean paste 1 teaspoon ginger powder black sesami seeds note that there is no sugar added to yeast to rise. Instead of adding sugar, I use 1 cup flour, salt, ginger powder, olive oil and yeast mixed in 1 1/2 cup water and let it rise at 90 - 100F in an oven for 60 - 90 min. Once it gets a little bubbly, add the remaining flour to the mix and keep kneading. Also mix in the red bean paste once the dough starts to get more maneuverable without sticking to your hands too much. Make
Read more