Study: Soda Associated With High Blood Pressure

Soda and other sugar-sweetened beverages such as fruit drinks are associated with higher blood pressure levels in adults, researchers report in Hypertension: Journal of the American Heart Association.

In the International Study of Macro/Micronutrients and Blood Pressure (INTERMAP), for every extra sugar-sweetened beverage drunk per day participants on average had significantly higher systolic blood pressure by 1.6 millimeters of mercury (mm Hg) and diastolic blood pressure higher by 0.8 mm Hg. This remained statistically significant even after adjusting for differences in body mass, researchers said. Anecdotal evidence suggests that Americans drink a lot of soda

Researchers found higher blood pressure levels in individuals who consumed more glucose and fructose, both sweeteners that are found in high-fructose corn syrup, the most common sugar sweetener used by the beverage industry. Higher blood pressure was more pronounced in people who consumed high levels of both sugar and sodium. They found no consistent association between diet soda intake and blood pressure levels. Those who drank diet soda had higher mean BMI than those who did not and lower levels of physical activity.

"This points to another possible intervention to lower blood pressure," said Paul Elliott, Ph.D., senior author and professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics in the School of Public Health at Imperial College London. "These findings lend support for recommendations to reduce the intake of sugar-sweetened beverages, as well as added sugars and sodium in an effort to reduce blood pressure and improve cardiovascular health."

Rare Cacao Beans Discovered in Peru

By Florence Fabrikant for The New York Times

DAN PEARSON was working in northern Peru two years ago with his stepson Brian Horsely, supplying gear and food to mining companies, when something caught his eye.

“We were in a hidden mountain valley of the Marañón River and saw some strange trees with football-size pods growing right out of their trunks,” Mr. Pearson said by telephone last week. “I knew nothing about cacao, but I learned that’s what it was.”

It was, he would learn after sending samples of seeds and leaves to the Agricultural Research Service of the United States Department of Agriculture, one of the rarest, most prized varieties of cacao.

“The DNA of this material is pure Nacional,” said Dr. Lyndel Meinhardt, a scientist with the service. “These are very rare.”

Until the early 20th century, Nacional, a member of the Forastero family, one of the three main genetic categories of cacao, was widely grown in Ecuador, then the world’s largest cacao producer. But it succumbed to disease, which even cross-breeding could not resist. Some Nacional still grows in Ecuador, though most is not pure. At least one chocolate company, Kallari, says it uses it in blends.

But with the help of the Swiss chocolate expert Franz Zeigler, beans that Mr. Pearson and his stepson buy are being made into slabs of pure Nacional chocolate. “The magnitude of this find is bigger than anything I have known,” Mr. Zeigler said.

The chocolate is intense, with a floral aroma and a persistent mellow richness. Its lack of bitterness is remarkable.

One reason may be that Nacional cacao has a rare and precious characteristic: some of the beans are white, not the usual purple, and those from the Marañón Canyon are about 40 percent white. White beans, which Dr. Meinhardt said have fewer bitter anthocyanins, produce a more mellow-tasting, less acidic chocolate. Dr. Meinhardt said white beans are mutations that happen when trees are left undisturbed for hundreds of years.

A cacao pod is filled with sweet, whitish, viscous pulp embedded with seeds. Inside these seeds are the beans. You cannot easily tell which pods or seeds will have white beans, but Mr. Pearson said, without revealing more, that he has figured it out.

Chocolate made from 100 percent white beans is extremely expensive. (When roasted the beans turn brown and they are unrelated to “white chocolate.”)

Cacao is thought to have originated in the rain forests at the source of the Amazon and Orinoco Rivers and then gradually dispersed northward. What surprised Dr. Meinhardt the most about Mr. Pearson’s cacao was that it was growing at an altitude above 3,500 feet, while cacao rarely grows above 2,000 feet.

In the canyon, 186 farmers are growing pure Nacional. The beans are transported to a town several hours away, where they are dried, fermented and roasted, then sent to Lima and shipped to Switzerland. The chocolate is processed there by a company recommended by Mr. Zeigler, which Mr. Pearson did not want to name. The beans are made into what they call Fortunato No. 4, a 68-percent bittersweet couverture, a high-butterfat chocolate that’s easy to use.

They have 15 tons of it in slabs. A company in Switzerland and one each in Germany, Canada and the United States (Moonstruck Chocolatier, of Portland, Ore.) are making candies and bars with the chocolate.

At Moonstruck, the exclusive American retailer for the chocolate, Julian Rose, the chocolatier, is coating pure Nacional beans with pure Nacional chocolate. These will be introduced this weekend at the Fancy Food Show in San Francisco, and are sold as Fortunato Tumbled Beans at moonstruckchocolate.com ($12 for 3.5 ounces; bars of Peruvian Fortunato are $12 for 2 ounces). Mr. Rose said the flavor of this chocolate is so refined that it does not need vanilla, commonly added to chocolate, to round it out.

At the Institute of Culinary Education in New York, Michelle Tampakis, the director of advanced pastry studies, said the chocolate was extremely smooth when melted, with a full-bodied, nutty flavor that was not bitter.

Mr. Zeigler, who visited the canyon with Mr. Pearson last year, said he had a “Jurassic Park feeling” about the experience. “And the discovery of the white beans tops the whole thing,” he said. “I have no doubt this chocolate will be up there with the very best in the world.”

Researchers In UK Developing "Smart Plastic" To Detect Freshness Of Food

Researchers from Strathclyde University in Glasgow are working on indicators made from "intelligent plastics" that change colour when food loses its freshness. They hope to have a commercially viable product available soon which will improve food safety and cut waste.

The project is being supported with £325,000 (about $504,000) in funding from the Scottish Enterprise Proof of Concept programme.

UK households are estimated to throw out about 8.3 million tonnes of food each year - most of which could be eaten. It is also thought that there are about one million cases of food poisoning annually in Britain.

The Strathclyde University team hopes new smart wrapping will alert consumers when food is about to lose its freshness because it has broken or damaged packaging, has exceeded its "best before" date or has been poorly refrigerated.

Freshness indicators currently used across the food industry usually take the form of labels inserted in a package but these come at a significant cost. Strathclyde researchers are looking to create a new type of indicator which is part of the wrapping itself and subsequently much cheaper.

The indicator it is working on will change colour when the freshness of the food deteriorates past a certain level. It will be used as part of a form of food packaging known as modified atmosphere packaging, which keeps food in specially-created conditions that prolong its shelf life.

Professor Andrew Mills, who is leading the project, told the BBC: "At the moment, we throw out far too much food, which is environmentally and economically damaging.

"Modified atmosphere packaging is being used increasingly to contain the growth of organisms which spoil food but the costs of the labels currently used with it are substantial. We are aiming to eliminate this cost with new plastics for the packaging industry.

"We hope that this will reduce the risk of people eating food which is no longer fit for consumption and help prevent unnecessary waste of food. We also hope it will have a direct and positive impact on the meat and seafood industries."

The Strathclyde team believes its work could resolve potential confusion about the different significances of "best before" dates and "sell-by" dates.

It could also help to highlight the need for food to be stored in refrigerators which are properly sealed.

Another Stroke Culprit: Fried Fish

A wide swath of the South has long been known as the “stroke belt” because it has higher rates of stroke and other cardiovascular illnesses than the rest of the country. Now researchers are suggesting one culprit: fried fish.

Fish contain omega-3 fatty acids, which help reduce the risk for stroke, and the American Heart Associationrecommends at least two fish meals per week. But deep-fat frying destroys these natural fatty acids and replaces them with cooking oil.

Scientists writing online in the journal Neurology analyzed the diets of more than 21,000 people nationwide. They found that people in eight stroke belt states — North and South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, Arkansas and Louisiana — ate a three-ounce serving of fish an average of twice a week, roughly the same as people elsewhere. But they were 32 percent more likely to have that fish fried. Nationally, African-Americans ate more fish meals than whites, and twice as much fried fish.

Read the full story in The New York Times.

Study: Red Meat Consumption Increases Risk Of Stroke In Women

From Reuters:

Women who eat a lot of red meat may be putting themselves at increased risk of stroke, a new study in more than 30,000 Swedish women hints.

The study team found that those in the top tenth for red meat consumption, who ate at least 102 grams or 3.6 ounces daily, were 42 percent more likely to suffer a stroke due to blocked blood flow in the brain compared to women who ate less than 25 grams (just under an ounce) of red meat daily.

Diets heavy in red meat have been linked to a number of ill effects, including an increased risk of certain cancers, heart disease, and high blood pressure. Yet, just three studies have looked at red meat and stroke risk. One study found a link, but the others did not.

To investigate further, Dr. Susanna Larsson of the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm and her colleagues looked at 34,670 women 39 to 73 years old. All were free of cardiovascular disease and cancer at the beginning of the study, in 1997.

During 10 years of follow-up, 1,680 of the women (4 percent) had a stroke.

Stroke caused by blockage of an artery that supplies blood to the brain -- also known as "cerebral infarction" -- was the most common type of stroke, representing 78 percent of all strokes in the study. Other types of strokes were due to bleeding in the brain, or unspecified causes.

When the researchers divided women into five groups based on how much red meat they reported eating, they found that those in the top fifth, who ate at least 86 grams daily (3 ounces) were at 22 percent greater risk of cerebral infarction than women in the bottom fifth (less than 36.5 grams, or 1.3 ounces, daily).

Women who ate the most processed meat (at least 41.3 grams, or 1.5 ounces, a day) were at 24 percent greater risk of this type of stroke than women who consumed the least (less than 12.1 grams, or less than half an ounce a day).

However, there was no link between consumption of red or processed meat and risk of other types of stroke, nor was there any relationship between fresh meat consumption or poultry consumption and any type of stroke.

Red meat increased stroke risk in non-smokers, but not smokers, and in women who didn't have diabetes, but not in women with diabetes. For non-smokers and non-diabetics in the top tenth of red meat consumption, the risk of cerebral infarction was 68 percent greater.

Several mechanisms could explain the link between red meat and processed meat and stroke risk, the researchers say.

For example, both types of meat have been tied to high blood pressure, the main cause of stroke. The iron contained in red meats might also accelerate the production of tissue-damaging free radicals. Further, Larsson and her team point out, processed meats are high in sodium, which can increase blood pressure.