Skipping dinner dangerous - heightens the impact of toxins contained in other foods (in this case Litchis)

My note: Skipping dinner dangerous - heightens the impact of toxins contained in other foods (in this case Litchis). This could apply to all fruits. Especially, for people taking only fruits at night. Or only vegetables. Low glucose and these other toxic substances in fruits, vegetables, etc., could be harmful. So, it's better to maintain atleast good amount of glucose levels in the night by eating some carbohydrates.

***

Toxins in litchi kill children in Bihar: Lancet

UPDATED: FEBRUARY 01, 2017 21:42 IST

Feb 1, 2016

Unexplained illness in children aged 15 years and younger in Muzaffarpur, Bihar, which claims many lives during an outbreak that occurs in May-June, has been solved. Scientists from the U.S. and India have found that consumption of litchi fruit and skipping evening meal can result in very low blood glucose level (less than 70 mg/dL) and acute encephalopathy including seizures and coma, and causes death in many cases. The results were published in the journal Lancet Global Health.

Children in Muzaffarpur frequently spend the day eating litchis and some skip the evening meal. Skipping evening meal, by itself results in low blood sugar levels during the night. This is particularly so in the case of young children as they have limited hepatic glycogen reserves. Hypoglycin A and methylenecyclopropylglycine (MCPG), which are naturally present in litchi fruit, make the condition worse. The toxins block enzymes involved in normal glucose metabolism and this results in an inability to synthesis glucose leading to acutely low level of blood sugar. The build-up of other metabolic by-products could also have an adverse effect (encephalopathy) on the child. These two cause death in many children.

The study shows the modifying effect of skipping the evening meal on the impact of these toxins.

In 2013, scientists from Delhi’s National Centre for Disease Control, India (NCDC) and the U.S. Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) started an investigation. The first focus of the team was to evaluate if the mysterious condition was due to an infectious cause or not. “Most of the children did not have fever. And on testing the spinal fluid we did not find elevated white blood cell count. These two indicated that it was less likely to be to an infectious cause. It gave us a clue that we should look at non-infectious causes,” recalls Dr. Padmini Srikantiah, Global Disease Detection Programme-India, CDC, Atlanta and the corresponding author of the paper.

With infectious causes ruled out and most sick children presenting with low blood glucose levels the team started investigating the role of toxins — exposure to pesticide, insecticide and heavy metals to name a few.

“In late 2013, CDC colleagues in Atlanta brought to our attention the well reported case of toxic hypoglycaemic syndrome in West Indies caused by hypoglycin A, a toxin found in ackee fruit, which is in the same family as litchi,” she says. “MCPG, which is a homologue had been detected in the seed of litchis, and was reported to cause low blood glucose in rats. So we started with a hypothesis.”

The 2014 outbreak allowed the scientists to investigate the role of pesticides, herbicides, heavy metals, besides hypoglycin A and MCPG in litchi fruits. “We heard over and over again from parents that their children were healthy and running around the day before, but presented with seizures and loss of consciousness in the early morning. Some people also said their children had skipped the evening meal the previous day [to illness],” says Dr. Srikantiah.

Over 62% sick children had blood glucose level less than 70 mg/dL. The median was 48 mg/dL and it was as low as 8 mg/dL.

Researchers compared 104 children with illness with similar number of controls. They found metabolites of hypoglycin A and MCPG in 66% (48 of 73 cases) of urine samples but none from the 15 controls. About 90% of children with illness showed severe disruption of fatty acid metabolism. In 36 litchi samples tested, hypoglycin A ranged from 12.4-152 microgram per gram and MCPG ranged from 45-220 microgram per gram. The level of hypoglycin A and MCPG was twice in unripe compared with ripe fruits.

“After our field investigation in July2013, we didn’t know the cause but we recommended dextrose therapy to children who were sick. The mortality fell from 44% in 2013 to 31% in 2014. So administration of dextrose to sick children is very important,” she says. Whether malnourishment and other factors also play a role merits further investigation.

“Our data supports a public health recommendation — minimising litchi consumption, eating evening meal throughout the outbreak period and implementing rapid glucose correction for suspected illness. These

http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/health/Toxins-in-litchi-kill-children-in-Bihar-Lancet/article17128731.ece

Cottonseed Oil - a non-edible oil, useful as an insecticide became cooking oil due to economic reasons and aggressive marketing

Summary:

1. Cottonseed had no economic value. It was a waste product out of cotton.
2. In 1820s and 1830s, shortage of lard, made US business people to use cottonseed oil for making  cooking and lighting oil for Europeans.  
3. With advent of petroleum, and no demand for cottonseed oil, it was made into a cooking oil. Aggressive marketing was used by P&G to make this oil which was initially used for candle making into an edible oil.
4. After soya bean oil became cheaper, people used it rather than cotton seed oil. It shows that always economics gets more important than health when it comes to food products marketing.
4. Untreated cottonseed oil, including vegetable, oils are uses as disinfectant against pest. This shows show harmful vegetable oils can be on people's stomachs and their health.

Cottonseed oil

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Cotton seeds

Cottonseed oil is a cooking oil extracted from the seeds of cotton plants of various species, mainly Gossypium hirsutum and Gossypium herbaceum, that are grown for cotton fiber, animal feed, and oil.^[1]

Cotton seed has a similar structure to other oilseeds such as sunflower seed, having an oil-bearing kernel surrounded by a hard outer hull; in processing, the oil is extracted from the kernel. Cottonseed oil is used for salad oil, mayonnaise, salad dressing, and similar products because of its flavor stability.^[2]

Contents

  [hide] 

• 1Composition
  • 1.1Comparison to other vegetable oils
• 2Physical properties
• 3Economic History
• 4Use in food
• 5Use as insecticide
• 6References
• 7External links

Composition[edit]

Mississippi Cottonseed Oil Co. seed house, Jackson, Mississippi, USA

Its fatty acid profile generally consists of 70% unsaturated fatty acids (18% monounsaturated, and 52% polyunsaturated), 26% saturated fatty acids.^[3] When it is fully hydrogenated, its profile is 94% saturated fat and 2% unsaturated fatty acids (1.5% monounsaturated, and 0.5% polyunsaturated).^[4] According to the cottonseed oil industry, cottonseed oil does not need to be hydrogenated as much as other polyunsaturated oils to achieve similar results.^[2]

Gossypol is a toxic, yellow, polyphenolic compound produced by cotton and other members of the order Malvaceae, such as okra.^[5] This naturally occurring coloured compound is found in tiny glands in the seed, leaf, stem, tap root bark, and root of the cotton plant. The adaptive function of the compound facilitates natural insect resistance. The three key steps of refining, bleaching, and deodorization in producing finished oil act to eliminate the gossypol level. Ferric chloride is often used to decolorize cotton seed oil.^[6]

Comparison to other vegetable oils[edit]

This template needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (May 2016) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

Vegetable oils
Type	Processing Treatment	Saturated fatty acids[7]	Mono- unsaturated fatty acids[7]	Polyunsaturated fatty acids			Oleic acid (ω-9)	Smoke point
				Total poly[7]	linolenic acid (ω-3)	Linoleic acid (ω-6)
Avocado		11.560	70.554	13.486	1	12.5		249 °C (480 °F)[8]
Canola (rapeseed)		7.365	63.276	28.142	10	10		204 °C (400 °F)[9]
Coconut		91.000	6.000	3.000		2	6	177 °C (350 °F)[9]
Corn[10]		12.948	27.576	54.677	1	58	28	232 °C (450 °F)
Cottonseed		25.900	17.800	51.900	1	54	19	216 °C (420 °F)[10]
Flaxseed/Linseed (European)[11]		7.500	15.500	79.000	64	15	11	107 °C (225 °F)
Olive		14.000	72.000	14.000	1.5	15		193 °C (380 °F)[9]
Palm		49.300	37.000	9.300		10	40	235 °C (455 °F)
Peanut		16.900	46.200	32.000		32	48	225 °C (437 °F)[10]
Safflower (>70% linoleic)		8.000	15.000	75.000				210 °C (410 °F)[9]
Safflower (high oleic)		7.541	75.221	12.820				210 °C (410 °F)[9]
Soybean		15.650	22.783	57.740	7	50	24	238 °C (460 °F)[10]
Sunflower (<60% linoleic)		10.100	45.400	40.100	0.2	39.8	45.3	227 °C (440 °F)[10]
Sunflower (>70% oleic)		9.859	83.689	3.798				227 °C (440 °F)[10]
Cottonseed (hydrogenated)[7]	Hydrogenated	93.600	1.529	0.587		0.287
Palm (hydrogenated)	Hydrogenated	47.500	40.600	7.500
Soybean (hydrogenated)[7]	Hydrogenated	21.100	73.700	0.400	0.096
Values as percent (%) by weight of total fat.

Physical properties[edit]

Once processed, cottonseed oil has a mild taste and appears generally clear with a light golden color, the amount of color depending on the amount of refining.^[13] It has a relatively high smoke point as a frying medium. Density ranges from 0.917 g/cm³ to 0.933 g/cm³.^[14] Like other long-chain fatty acid oils, cottonseed oil has a smoke point of about 450 °F (232 °C),^[5] and is high in tocopherols, which also contribute its stability, giving products that contain it a long shelf life, hence manufacturers' proclivity to use it in packaged goods.

Economic History[edit]

The by-product of cotton processing, cottonseed was considered virtually worthless before the late 19th century.^[15] While cotton production expanded throughout the 17th, 18th, and mid 19th centuries, a largely worthless stock of cottonseed grew.^[15] Although some of the seed was used for planting, fertilizer, and animal feed, the majority was left to rot or was illegally dumped into rivers.^[16]

In the 1820s and 1830s Europe experienced fats and oils shortages due to rapid population expansion during the Industrial Revolution and the after-effects of the British blockade during the Napoleonic Wars.^[16] The increased demand for fats and oils, coupled with a decreasing supply caused prices to rise sharply.^[15] Consequently, many Europeans could not afford to buy the fats and oils they had used for cooking and for lighting.^[15] Many United States entrepreneurs tried to take advantage of the increasing European demand for oils and America’s increasingly large supply of cottonseed by crushing the seed for oil.^[16] But separating the seed hull from the seed meat proved difficult and most of these ventures failed within a few years.^[16] This problem was resolved in 1857, when William Fee invented a huller, which effectively separated the tough hulls from the meats of cottonseed.^[15] With this new invention, cottonseed oil began to be used for illumination purposes in lamps to supplement increasingly expensive whale oil and lard.^[15] But by 1859, this use came to end as the petroleum industry emerged.^[15]

Cottonseed oil then began to be used illegally to fortify animal fats and lards.^[15] Initially, meat packers secretly added cottonseed oil to the pure fats, but this practice was uncovered in 1884.^[15] Armour and Company, an American meatpacking and food processing company, sought to corner the lard market and realized that it had purchased more lard than the existing hog population could have produced.^[15] A congressional investigation followed, and legislation was passed that required products fortified with cottonseed oil to be labeled as ‘‘lard compound.”^[16] Similarly, cottonseed oil was often blended with olive oil. Once the practice was exposed, many countries put import tariffs on American olive oil and Italy banned the product completely in 1883.^[16] Both of these regulatory schemes depressed cottonseed oil sales and exports, once again creating an oversupply of cottonseed oil, which decreased its value.^[16]

It was cottonseed's depressed value that led a newly formed Procter & Gamble to utilize its oil.^[16] The Panic of 1837 caused the two brothers-in-law to merge their candlestick and soap manufacturing businesses in an effort to minimize costs and weather the bear market.^[15] Looking for a replacement for expensive animal fats in production, the brothers finally settled on cottonseed oil.^[15] Procter & Gamble cornered the cottonseed oil market to circumvent the meat packer's monopoly on the price. But as electricity emerged, the demand for candles decreased.^[16] Procter and Gamble then found an edible use for cottonseed oil. Through patented technology, the brothers were able to hydrogenate cottonseed oil and develop a substance that closely resembled lard.^[15] In 1911, Procter & Gamble launched an aggressive marketing campaign to publicize its new product, Crisco, a vegetable shortening that could be used in place of lard.^[17] Crisco placed ads in major newspapers advertising that the product was "easier on digestion...a healthier alternative to cooking with animal fats. . . and more economical than butter.”^[18] The company also gave away free cookbooks, with every recipe calling for Crisco.^[18] By the 1920s the company developed cookbooks for specific ethnicities in their native tongues.^[18] Additionally, Crisco starting airing radio cooking programs.^[18] Similarly, in 1899 David Wesson, a food chemist, developed deodorized cottonseed oil, Wesson cooking oil.^[16] Wesson Oil also was marketed heavily and became quite popular too.^[16]

Over the next 30 years cottonseed oil became the pre-eminent oil in the United States.^[15] Crisco and Wesson oil became direct substitutes for lard and other more expensive oils in baking, frying, sautéing, and salad dressings.^[15] But by World War Two cottonseed oil shortages forced the utilization of another direct substitute, soybean oil.^[15] By 1944, soybean oil production outranked cottonseed oil production due to cottonseed shortages and soybean oil costs falling below that of cottonseed oil.^[15] By 1950, soybean oil replaced cottonseed oil in the use of shortenings like Crisco due to soybeans comparatively low price.^[15] Prices for cottonseed were also increased by the replacement of cotton acreage by corn and soybeans, a trend fueled in large part by the boom in demand for corn syrup and ethanol.^[15] Cottonseed oil and production continued to decline throughout the mid and late 20th century.^[15]

In the mid to late 2000s, the consumer trend of avoiding trans fats, and mandatory labeling of trans fats in some jurisdictions, sparked an increase in the consumption of cottonseed oil,^[19] with some health experts^[20]:220 and public health agencies^[21] recommending it as a healthy oil. Crisco and other producers have been able to reformulate cottonseed oil so it contains little to no trans fats.^[22] Still, some health experts claim that cottonseed oil’s high ratio of polyunsaturated fats to monounsaturated fats and processed nature make it unhealthy.^[23]

Use in food[edit]

Cottonseed oil has traditionally been used in foods such as potato chips and was for many years a primary ingredient in Crisco, the shortening product. The current formulation of Crisco includes no cottonseed oil.^[24] Significantly less expensive than olive oil or canola oil, cottonseed oil is a popular frying oil for the restaurant and snack-food manufacturing industries.^[25]

Use as insecticide[edit]

In an agricultural context, the toxicity of untreated cottonseed oil may be considered beneficial: Oils, including vegetable oils, have been used for centuries to control insect and mite pests.^[26] This oil has been generally considered the most insecticidal of vegetable oils

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cottonseed_oil