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Comment by brador | Hacker News Reader

Are there any other common food ingredients that have a high chance of causing cancer?

I might be a paranoiac here, but I prefer to keep a somewhat-permeable whitelist instead of a blacklist. Make sure 2/3ish of my calories come from healthy animal proteins (I raise pigs and chickens and trade meat and eggs for beef, so I know exactly what's going into what's going into me), drink almost exclusively water (2-5 expressos a day are worth mentioning too), and then fill in the rest with whatever the hell I want.

Don't have to be careful with particular ingredients if you have a steady baseline of known-good, nutrient-dense, healthful calories. Also never have to waste on time on bullshit like this--oh, no, maybe aspartame ISN'T good for you! or, What did the NYTimes says about Splenda? or what the NIH researched about highly-processed factory-produced fake meat. Ignore it all, eat reasonable, old-school food.

In one kind of way it's kind of like that story you hear about Steve Jobs wearing the same black shirt and jeans every day--it actually is a consequential decision--what to eat vs. how to present yourself. But, if you can pre-set some defaults that get you to Good Enough (and in the case of my diet, apparently Better Than 95% of Americans), you save so much mental energy. It seems to me most "nutritional research" serves the purposes of large agribusiness and/or fad-nutrition industries. Why bother spending mental effort on that bullshit?

I agree. Flavor should follow function. Too many people prioritize building meals that taste good when they should first be optimizing for nutrition. Once you've configured genuinely healthy foods into some arrangement suitable for consumption, it's best to just keep building that same meal over and over. You'll get more efficient at making it and eating it, thus saving time and never having to worry if you're hitting your nutrition goals.

Save the creative meals for special occasions or social functions.

Processed meats and red meats are linked to colorectal cancer. I believe it's something like 70% of CRC cases can be traced back to red/processed meat consumption.

>In 2007, the World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF) stated that there is convincing evidence linking the consumption of red and processed meat with the development of colorectal cancer (CRC). The WCRF further stated that the public should limit their intake of red meat to below 500 g per week, and avoid processed meat entirely. A further update from the WCRF emphasized that no safe level of processed meat could confidently be attributed to a lack of risk.

Excerpt from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6893523/

These studies are all incredibly weak, because they rely on surveys and pluck variables out for correlations. So besides the fact that people almost never remember or accurately report what they eat over many years, it's a dubious correlation that can't be relied on.

I saw another study that showed only processed meats were linked to colon cancer recently. Variety and moderation, avoid processed foods. I don’t think red meat is the culprit people make it out to be /in a healthy and balanced diet/.

I was surprised to see a Prop 65 warning on the organic frozen spinach we get delivered by Amazon Fresh/Whole Foods. Apparently it's due to Cadmium.

It makes me wonder if the stuff you buy in-store doesn't have the same risk, or if they just don't label it as obviously as online.

You can find prop 65 warnings on basically anything heated to browning too. Coffee, cooked asparagus, bread, the list is gigantic: https://franzbakery.com/HTML/prop65

I’ve seen the prop65 warnings about reproductive health on Japanese canned coffee and tea, but I’ve never seen these warnings on any other canned drinks here in the US

Maybe they are imported through California? Most canned drinks probably come from Ohio or New Jersey or something.

Brazil nuts are like that as well. The nuts themselves are ok but how they're grown causes them to contain too much selenium which can be toxic over time.

Mercury in fish is another doozy.

The physical store likely has a warning saying they “contain chemicals known to cause cancer.” Because these warning signs are so ubiquitous in California you probably just miss it when you go to the brick & mortar.

Quite possibly, but it seems like if you can just have one big sign in front of the store, then you could just have one sign on the bottom of a website. Here there's a specific warning on the organic frozen spinach.

Yes. Trans fats and nitrates, for example.

Alcohol would be the big one.

Red meat.

Those are all correlations and observational studies. There is no actual evidence of any meat increasing risk of cancer.

Except when it’s grilled/charred, but then I guess it’s not the meat that’s carcinogenic at that point

Acrylamides.

These are not common food ingredient, and they are not supposed to be injested. I was doing the dishes the other day, and like usually, doing a terrible job--trying to save water too. I was thinking what damage could soap residue do? I then noticed the Dawn Soap. From and center they listed all the ingredients. (So front and center it looks like a lawyer told them to place the ingredients front, and center?) Do I still love Dawn soap--yes, but not for my dishes anymore. (Machine shops use Dawn to clean parts, and it works great on oily birds.

My point is the amount of chemicals around us. An No--I'm not claiming anything bad about Dawn Soap.

WATER SODIUM LAURYL SULFATE surfactant SODIUM LAURETH SULFATE C10-16 ALKYLDIME-THYLAMINE OXIDE ALCOHOL DENAT. solvent PPG-26 SODIUM CHLORIDE SODIUM HYDROXIDEadjuster PEI-14 PEG-24/PPG-16 COPOLYMER cleaning PHENOXYETHANOL solvent solvent* stabilizes formula FRAGRANCES fragrance perfume adds scent to product METHYLISOTHIAZO-LINONE COLORANTS, BLUE 1,YELLOW 5, RED 33 colorant colorant C9-11 PARETH-8 STYRENE/ACRYLATES COPOLYMER TETRASODIUM GLUTAMATE DIACETATE CHLOROXYLENOL PHENOXY-ISOPROPANOL GLYCERIN SODIUM CUMENE-SULFONATE PROPYLENE GLYCOL solvent solvent* TERPINEOL solvent solvent

Get ready to be surprised at the ingredients in a banana!: INGREDIENTS: WATER (75%), SUGARS (12%) (GLUCOSE (48%), FRUCTOSE (40%), SUCROSE (2%), MALTOSE (<1%)), STARCH (5%), FIBRE (3%) (E460, E461, E462, E464, E466, E467) AMINO ACIDS (GLUTAMIC ACID (19%), ASPARTIC ACID (16%), HISTIDINE (11%), LEUCINE (7%), LYSINE (5%), PHENYLALANINE (4%), ARGININE (4%), VALINE (4%), ALANINE (4%), SERINE (4%), GLYCINE (3%), THREONINE (3%), ISOLEUCINE (3%), PROLINE (3%), TRYPTOPHAN (1%), CYSTINE (1%), TYROSINE (1%), METHIONINE (1%)), FATTY ACIDS (1%) (PALMITIC ACID (30%), OMEGA-6 FATTY ACID: LINOLEIC ACID (14%), OMEGA-3 FATTY ACID: LINOLENIC ACID (8%), OLEIC ACID (7%), PALMITOLEIC ACID (3%), STEARIC ACID (2%), LAURIC ACID (1%), MYRISTIC ACID (1%), CAPRIC ACID (<1%)), ASH (<1%), PHYTOSTEROLS, E515, OXALIC ACID, E300, E306 (TOCOPHEROL), PHYLLOQUINONE, THIAMIN, COLOURS (YELLOW-ORANGE E101 (RIBOFLAVIN), YELLOW-BROWN E160a), FLAVOURS (ETHYL HEXANOATE, ETHYL BUTANOATE, 3-METHYLBUT-1-YL ETHANOATE, PENTYL ACETATE), E1510, NATURAL RIPENING AGENT (ETHENE GAS).

These are literally, literally, the same ingredients which are found in "natural" (animal-fat derived) soaps.

This is some "dihydrogen monoxide" grade FUD.

Soap is hydrophilic, it sticks to water, that’s what makes it good at washing things away. I never had trouble with soap residue, I figure I would taste it if any was left behind.

Edit: I do buy the colorless and scent free soap cause I don’t see why dyes should be in soap tho

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