M6.7 Obesogens

The first article is great. It paints a nice picture of what type of foods are sourced, how they are sourced, and what public health and hospitals are aiming for. The articles main points are; Local foods provide a decrease in climate change (reduction in travel miles for the food), able to increase food safety as local farmers aren't in the main stream and will not harm the main food supply, competitive prices, taste, and you support you local community. All great examples of what is possible.

Farming around the bay area is well known. Looking at the websites provided on the pdf, a ton of berries, artichokes, broccoli, spinach, lettuce, garlic, and flowers are all grown in the central coast. Monterey, Salinas, Watsonville, and Santa Cruz to name a few. All the local growers, even though they may be large companies like Dole, ship to local stores. I don't consider these 'local' farmers but it does count for us. They don't have to ship inventory very far. Its the strawberries and such made here that ship all over the US that contributes to the global warming. The small farmers in between all these large farm lands owned by corporations is where we need to focus our attention.

For the second article I had not heard of obesogens until now. It seems like they have been discontinued for food use but still used in some manufacturing of wood materials if I read the article right and understood it. Due to some manufacturing still using it they are seeping in to water ways and thus still reaching humans causing endocrine disruption. Seems like a pretty bad chemical if rats are being born fatter and mice are fatter with the compound versus others without it. This needs to be banned in all manufacturing to stop the obesity epidemic. 

I looked up perfluorooctanoic acid which is a chemical surfactant used in feedstock. Feedstock is essentially middle material used to make other material and finish off products and goods like energy. It is essentially raw material to make other materials. This is in a majority of our products and is a known obesogen according to the article.


Comments

  1. Sandy TanOctober 5, 2018 at 11:34 AM

    Hi Dan,
    I agree with you that obesogens need to be banned. Doing so can be a solution in addressing the obesity epidemic like you pointed out.

    ReplyDelete
  2. UnknownOctober 10, 2018 at 8:24 PM

    Hi Dan,
    Yes, obesogens should be banned or at least regulated more rigorously. I'm not shocked to see that something as harmful as PFOA is basically in everything we use. We can't seem to escape risks!

    ReplyDelete

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