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Chocolate Is Good For The Heart | Earth Wise

August 27, 2020 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

At last a good news story about what we eat, or more specifically, about what we like to eat. According to research published recently in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology, eating chocolate at least once a week is linked with a reduced risk of heart disease.

In the past, clinical studies have shown that chocolate is beneficial for both blood pressure and the lining of blood vessels. The new study suggests that chocolate helps to keep the heart’s blood vessels healthy.

The researchers conducted a combined analysis of studies from the past five decades examining the association between chocolate consumption and coronary artery disease. The analysis included data from over 300,000 participants who reported their chocolate consumption. About 14,000 participants in the study ultimately developed coronary heart disease. Compared with consuming chocolate less than once a week, eating chocolate more than once a week was associated with an 8% decreased risk of coronary heart disease.

Chocolate contains heart-healthy nutrients such as flavonoids, methylxanthines, polyphenols, and steric acid. These substances may reduce inflammation and increase good (HDL) cholesterol.

The study did not examine whether any particular type of chocolate is more beneficial or whether there is an ideal portion size. So, while chocolate appears to be promising for reducing the occurrence of coronary heart disease, it will require more research to determine how much and what kind of chocolate could be recommended.

Not to be spoilsports, but the doctors who conducted the study warned against overeating. Eating large quantities of chocolate products laden with calories, sugar, milk and fat, is not a recommended path to improved health.

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Chocolate is good for the heart

Photo, posted February 22, 2014, courtesy of Jan David Hanrath via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Too Many Bison | Earth Wise

May 8, 2020 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

The population of large herbivores in Yellowstone National Park has undergone many dramatic changes over the course of time. The numbers of both the iconic Rocky Mountain elk and bison have gone up and down as a result of human interactions.

Bison, of course, once were a dominant species from east of the Appalachians to west of the Rocky Mountains, with most of an estimated 30 million living on the Great Plains. As the west was settled, bison populations plummeted and by the late 1800s, they were nearly extinct.

When Yellowstone was established, there were exactly 22 bison in the park. By 1925, there were more than 750 in the park and culling of the herd in the park’s Lamar Valley was practiced for the next four decades.

The elimination of predators like grey wolves and cougars in the early 1900s caused both elk and bison populations to mushroom and both underwent culling. When culling was ended in 1968, there were 4,000 elk and 100 bison. Within 20 years, those numbers were 20,000 and 1,000. Reintroducing wolves and cougars reduced the elk population to about 5,000, but bison numbers have continued to grow, now reaching about 4,000.

While the long-term recovery of the Yellowstone bison herd is a major conservation success story, the fact is that bison are powerful ecosystem engineers. Large numbers of them disrupt species distribution across scrub steppe and grasslands because of what they eat, trample, and rub their horns and bodies on. They have a tremendous capacity to limit the structure and composition of ecosystems.

Park administrators have complicated management decisions to make to take into account the often wide range of ecological effects that abundant large herbivores can have on ecosystems.

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Bison in northern Yellowstone proving to be too much of a good thing

Photo, posted August 10, 2016, courtesy of Brian Gratwicke via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Mealworms And Plastic | Earth Wise

January 21, 2020 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Mealworms are widely cultivated beetle larvae that people feed to pets and to wild birds. But it turns out, they may have an even more valuable purpose: they can eat plastic and even plastic containing dangerous chemical additives.

Four years ago, researchers at Stanford discovered that mealworms can actually subsist on a diet of various types of plastic. They found that microorganisms in the worms’ guts actually biodegrade the plastic. It might be possible to cultivate the worms using unrecyclable plastic, rather than feeding them grains and fruits. However, there is the issue of whether it would be safe to feed the plastic-eating worms to other animals, given the possibility that harmful chemicals in plastic additives might accumulate in the worms over time.

Recently, the Stanford researchers studied what happens when the worms ingested Styrofoam or polystyrene. The plastic commonly used for packaging and insulation typically contains a flame retardant called hexabromocyclododecane, or HBCD. Studies have shown that HBCD can have significant health and environmental impacts, ranging from endocrine disruption to neurotoxicity.

According to the study, mealworms in the experiment excreted about half of the polystyrene they consumed as tiny, partially degraded fragments and the other half as carbon dioxide. With it, they excreted the HBCD. Mealworms fed a steady diet of HBCD-laden polystyrene were as healthy as those eating a normal diet. And shrimp fed a steady diet of the HBCD-ingesting mealworms also had no ill effects.

It is true that the HBCD excreted by the worms still poses a hazard and must be dealt with in some manner, but mealworms may have a role to play in dealing with unrecyclable plastics like Styrofoam.

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Stanford researchers show that mealworms can safely consume toxic additive-containing plastic

Photo, posted May 11, 2015, courtesy of Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Eco-Friendly Agriculture

October 21, 2019 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Modern agriculture has steadily destroyed native grasslands, among other ecosystems. In fact, farming is one of the most ecologically destructive things that humans do. But we do have to eat. In response, there is a growing movement for agrarian reform, from grain farming on the prairie, to agroforestry, to raising livestock more sustainably. Efforts are accelerating to develop a kinder, gentler agriculture adapted to a changing world.

One such effort has come from the Land Institute, an organization in Kansas that works on natural systems agriculture, which seeks to retain the ecological stability of the prairie with its perennial seed plants along with a grain and seed yield comparable to that from annual crops.

After four decades of effort, the institute has introduced its first commercial grain, a trademarked variety called Kernza. Kernza is a domesticated perennial wild grass – a so-called intermediate wheatgrass – that has a long, slender head that resembles wheat seeds. People describe its taste as sweet and nutty. Kernza is already being made into a cereal called Honey Toasted Kernza by Cascadian Farms. Patagonia Provisions – a spin-off from the clothing company – is making beer from the new grain.

Although Kernza is already being grown and sold commercially, it is not yet ready for prime time. Last year, there were only about 1,000 acres in cultivation and the yield is only a third to a tenth of the yield of wheat.

Developing a sustainable perennial polyculture of edible plants would have major benefits such as not having to plow every year, plants developing large root systems that can reach water far beneath the surface and, without annual plowing, having soil carbon remain in the ground.

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