Coronavirus kills toxic Chinese garlic trade in Kolkata

Feb 28, 2020, KOLKATA: One scare from China has led to a clampdown on a health hazard from the same country. The embargo on Chinese produce worldwide that has followed the COVID-19 outbreak in mainland China has cut off the supply lines of toxic Chinese garlic, which was being rampantly sold and consumed in Kolkata till recently.

Bleached in chlorine and fumigated in bromide-laced pesticide, Chinese garlic is carcinogenic and toxic. But demand for the variety is high in the local market because of its unblemished appearance and large cloves. The largeness makes peeling easy, which matters in commercial segments like restaurants and catering, where garlic is used in bulk. Many homemakers, too, prefer the Chinese variety over the Indian one for its ease of use.

The commerce ministry did impose a ban on the import and sale of Chinese garlic five years ago, but the variety continued to find its way in and retailed at all major civic and private markets in the city. That was until the news of the novel coronavirus broke and the garlic disappeared from the shelves, said Dilip Kumar Mondal, who sells garlic, onion and potato at the Gariahat market.

“The garlic was arriving through grey channels, and grocers were selling it to meet the demand. But, with the abundance of the local variety, retailers reduced their stock of Chinese garlic, even before its supply ceased,” pointed out Kamal Dey, West Bengal Vendors’ Association secretary.

Food technologists say eatting Chinese garlic could have major health consequences.

‘Health hazards include changes in metabolic rate’

According to Prashanta Kumar Biswas, associate professor at Jadavpur University’s food technology and biochemical engineering department, the garlic is sprayed with a fungicide that contains methyl bromide to prevent fungal growth for at least six months.

According to Pradhanta Kumar Biswas, the germ plasma that has been genetically developed to yield large garlic cloves has a dirty white or greyish-brown colour. The cloves are therefore bleached with chlorine to make them white and attractive. While bleaching kills insects, prevents sprouting and helps whiten the bulb, chlorine is a carcinogen.

“Both methyl bromide and chlorine get absorbed in the garlic and lead to formation of neurotoxins,” said Biswas. “Health hazards include changes in the body’s metabolic rate and disruption of pH control system in the stomach. To prevent sprouting, chemicals are used. We don’t know whether hormonal treatment happens as well. That would be further harmful,” he added.

Utpal Roychowdhury, head of the food sciences technology department at Maulana Abul Kalam Azad University of Technology, pointed out that a Chinese garlic would also not have the beneficial effect that normal garlic has: allicin, a compound present in garlic that is believed to control blood pressure and act as a natural antibiotic and increase the body’s immunity, is present in very low levels in the Chinese variety.

Until the supply dried up, most consumers were blissfully unaware that the attractive-looking garlic is harmful. In fact, in many markets, retailers even suggested that the variety was beneficial to health. Kaberi Banerjee, who shops at New Market, said she was given to believe the garlic with large cloves was healthier, apart from being more convenient to use. “Had I known they contain chemicals, I would not have touched them. The variety is popular simply because it is convenient. Peeling one clove of that garlic is equivalent to peeling 10 cloves of the regular Indian variety,” she said.

Samir Kumar Banerjee, a general physician who lives in Kasba and shops at Gariahat and Lake Market, didn’t know the variety he was buying was of Chinese origin. “I thought they were a hybrid variety developed in India,” he said.

Meal timings count in weight loss

Mar 2, 2020

WASHINGTON: The time of the day when food is consumed may determine how many calories in it will be burned by the body, according to a study which suggests that a daily fast between the evening meal and breakfast can optimise weight management.

The researchers, including Kevin Kelly from Vanderbilt University, said the balance between weight loss and gain is predominantly determined by diet, the quantity of food consumed, and the amount of exercise a person gets. They said the time of the day when most food is eaten also determines how well a person burns dietary calories.

According to the study, published in the journal PLOS Biology, the human body’s daily biological clock and sleep regulate how the food is metabolised.

It added that the choice of burning fats or carbohydrates also changes depending on the time of day or night. The scientists said the circadian rhythm, or the body clock is programmed to assist the body burn fat when people sleep. As a result, they said, when people skip breakfast and then snack at night, it may lead to a delay in burning the fat.

Based on their observations, the scientists said the timing of meals during the day/night cycle may affect the extent to which ingested food is used versus stored.

According to the researchers, this study has important implications for eating habits, suggesting that a daily fast between the evening meal and breakfast may optimise weight management.

Facelifts by a handlift

Feb 28, 2020, 07.51 AM IST

NEW YORK: Barring admission to medical school or catastrophic injury, most of us will go our whole lives without much contemplating the grisly framework that enables and constrains our bodily movement.

But what if, in exchange for subjecting yourself to that existential reckoning, you could have zhuzhed cheeks and a temporary glow?

For an increasing number of Brooklyn residents for whom any price is a small price to pay for any good or service, the answer is a radiant yes.

The result is what the aesthetician Carrie Lindsey describes as a “nonsurgical facelift.” In her salon, Lindsey methodically rearranges the clay of her clients’ features until they resemble their own almost imperceptibly more attractive evil twins. She achieves this effect by smushing and smooshing and spreading and stretching their faces, for upward of an hour, and then (having donned gloves) rooting around inside their mouths for several minutes.

A description on the Carrie Lindsey Beauty website declares the treatment “the Brancusi of facials,” implying even if you are the type of person who doesn‘t know what Brancusi is, let alone what constitutes its facial equivalent, it sounds indescribably luxurious.

A Brancusi of feels like being alternately treasured and ravaged, pulled and gently slapped and firmly pressed, like pizza dough that has dropped on a human skeleton and now must be rubbed into the skeleton to hide this mistake.

Before and after photos will reveal that your skin no longer sagged in places you hadn’t known it sagged.

After an initial assessment, during which she scrutinises what she calls “the knit” of her client’s skin, Lindsey begins the treatment by pressing gently around the clavicle, underarms and jawline — locations of lymph nodes. She works her way more forcefully up the neck to the face. The movements, she said, are intended to encourage activity in the lymphatic and circulatory systems, to “feed” the skin.

“I’m not feeding it just topically with a mask or serum. Your body’s feeding your new skin cells. And I think that’s great.”