Page 8
The dirt on our
by Kay Harvey
Knight Riddler Newspaper
ST. PAUL, Minn. _ You'll eat a pound
of dirt in your lifetime. Most of us have
heard that bit of folk wisdom. But
should we believe it?
Nope. Now, the gritty truth: A pound
is just the appetizer.
"We actually eat more than a pound
of dirt in our lifetime," says Susan
Moores, a St. Paul dietitian
and spokeswoman for the
American Dietetic Associa
tion. "Probably several
pounds, depending on how
long an individual lives."
It's a tough thing to swal
low. But the good news is
dirt probably won't hurt
you_depending on what
you call dirt. Put it this way:
Typical soil won't hurt you,
soil and food experts say.
Unless it's contaminated by
things you really don't want
to read about over your
morning coffee.
Dirt is hardly the lone
substance invading our cu
linary turf. It's virtually im-
possible to get all the for-
eign objects out of food on its way to
processing, according to the U.S. Food
and Drug Administration. So, the FDA
has settled on monitoring what it con
siders acceptable levels of unappetizing
offenders.
Here's your official warning: Do not
continue reading this story if you're eat-
In processed cornmeal, for example,
FDA guidelines allow one or more
whole insects, 50 or more insect frag
ments, two or more rodent hairs and one
or more rodent excreta per 50 grams. In
a can of peaches, 3 percent of the fruit
can be moldy or wormy. And canned
mushrooms will pass inspection if they
have no more than an average 20 or
more maggots per 100 grams.
Surprised? So was Jay Bell, now a
faculty member in the University of
Minnesota's College of Agriculture,
when he once worked at a job counting
tomatoes before they were shipped.
"It was my job to count the maggots,
too," he says. "It was pretty amazing
how high they'd let the number go."
But bugs and worms won't hurt you,
either, he says. In many cultures, people
Crossword
ACROSS
1 Stumble
5 Base of a mesa
10 Camelback
14 Crown of light
15 Book before Joel
16 Asian sea
17 Folk singer Burl
18 Webster
illustration
19 Religious
ceremony
20 Navigational
instrument
22 Prolongation of
a chord
24 Abdominal
exercises
26 Expressed
enjoyment
27 Purpose
30 Medication
portion
31 Possess
32 Reaps a profit
34 Cromwell's
nickname
39 Fairy-tale monster
40 Stinker
41 Peaceful
42 Run counter
44 Sao Brazil
45 Be in debt
46 Therefore
48 Sack
49 Brief argument
52 Training routines
54 Film preview
56 One of Rome's
seven hills
60 Killer whale
61 English school
subj.
63 Inactive
64 Plant anchor
65 Underground
excavations
66 Thaw
67 Ultimatum word
68 Fidgety
69 Puts into words
DOWN
1 The nearer one
2 Glowing review
3 Holm oak
4 Job stations
5 Japanese religion
6 Bruise
eat insects. And in many packaged prod
ucts, they are exposed to heat, which
kills disease-producing organisms, dur
ing processing. As a professor of soil
science, Bell has the dirt on dirt, too.
For those who don't make a distinction,
he likes to establish the difference be
tween soil and dirt.
"Soil is a living body that occurs on
the surface of the Earth," he explains.
"It has to be able to support plant mate
rial, and it usually has something grow-
Behrend construction unearths a lot of dirt. How much of
it will be consumed by humans? We'll never know!
ing in it. Once you remove it from the
surface of the Earth, it's dirt. Dirt is what
you have under your fingernail."
And on some of your vegetables when
you pick them out at the supermarket
produce counter.
dirt no longer supports organic matter
so has lost most of its nutritional value.
That indicates it's low in calories, if that
helps anyone to better accept it as part
of the standard American diet. Some
mothers have been known to tell their
children not to complain about a little
dirt on their veggies because dirt has
minerals in it. But Bell doubts there's
much nutritional value in dirt.
"Whether it's got minerals in it or not,
it probably just passes through the hu
man body," he says. "I doubt the min
erals are available in a way that's going
to do you much good."
Dirt is most likely to cross one's pal
ate when eating root vegetables, espe
cially those with crevices in them, such
as potatoes and carrots, food experts say.
It's also common in leafy greens, such
as lettuce and spinach, which tend to
collect blowing soil and retain it when
© 2003 Tribune media Services, Inc.
All rights reserved.
Solutions
7 Buffoon
8 Coral creations
9 Top of the head
10 Dylan's
Instrument
11 Bathsheba's
husband
12 Dull finish
13 Argue a case
21 Lends a hand
23 Propels a shell
25 Close examiner
27 Intensely eager
28 "Othello"
conspirator
29 Sorvino of
"Mighty
Aphrodite"
31 Single unit
33 Try to reach an
agreement
35 Flightless birds
36 Dilettante's
44 Warsaw native 53 Loses weight
47 Expressionless 55 Thompson of
49 Put away for a "Wit"
rainy day 57 Inkling
50 Flynn of films 58 Comrade
51 Tex-Mex order 59 Fish catchers
52 Pool outlet 62 T. Turner stn.
painting
37 Ms. Fitzgerald
38 Polluted haze
40 Abandon truth
43 MP's quarry
Unlike soil, which is full of nutrients,
ern, h
wall Ins/
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4,4444 r1id,...0114\11.1.1.-14tj
Friday March 21, 2003
food
they are pulled out of the ground.
"Almost any fresh fruit or vegetable
is going to catch some dirt," says
Moores, the dietitian. "I made a tuna
salad the other day, and the celery was
just stuffed with mud." She did her best
to wash the mud off, a practice she ad
vocates.
Soil and dirt aren't the only sub
stances that get on food. "Dirt" on food
is to most people "anything we're not
planning on," says Donald Vesley of the
University of Minnesota
School of Public Health.
He agrees that inert par
ticles of dirt carrying
nothing dangerous are
probably irrelevant.
"What's of most con
cern would he pathogenic
organisms, bacteria or vi
ruses," he says.
Pathogens, microorgan
isms able to cause dis
ease, are the real had
guys. They can he present
in raw food or make their
way onto food during
processing and handling.
Publicized cases of
food contamination in the
manufacturing, restaurant
and cruise-ship industries
have brought the topic of food safety to
the dinner table, says Vesley, a profes
sor in the division of environmental and
occupational health.
He emphasizes the importance of
hand washing before eating or prepar
ing food; keeping kitchen tools sani
tized; cooking hamburger, poultry, pork,
fish and eggs thoroughly; and storing
perishable foods properly.
"Keep it hot, keep it cold, or don't
keep it," he advises.
But there are two schools of thought
on the subject of the zealous washing
of fresh fruits and vegetables. One is that
ingesting normal nonfood substances
can help the body build up immunities
to some diseases. The other is that dirt
on food can hurt you and you'd better
scrub those potatoes with a vengeance.
Bell, the soil science professor, says
he doesn't wash his fresh produce par
ticularly ambitiously. "My wife does, -
he says. "She likes to have it as clean as
possible. But I don't. I don't see a prob
lem with it."
Do not read this article!
by Crazy Newspaper Face
a not-so-serious contributing
writer
You think you have it hard be
cause you're a minority, or a
woman? Well, try being me for a
day. I'm Crazy Newspaper Face.
All I hear about these days is rac
ism, sexism, heterosexism, age
ism, and all those other isms.
What about anti-newspaperism'?
Yeah, I know you've never heard
of that. You probably think there
is no such thing. Well, I'm here
to tell you how it is. Don't get
me wrong, though. I'm not say
ing that all those things mentioned
above are insignificant. I'm just
saying try being a man with a
newspaper for a face.
1 was born on a cold January
morning in New York City. The
doctor couldn't even tell my
mother whether I was a boy or a
girl because he was too busy read
ing the funnies on page SA of my
face. The next few years of my
life weren't all that bad. Yeah,
sure, I would occasionally catch
my dad staring at my forehead
during dinner, but overall it wasn't
that bad.
Then the problems began.
Some readers probably had night
mares of showing up at school
naked, but have you ever had one
about having a newspaper for a
Through the looking glass
131 Mike Pmgree, KRT Campus
HMMMM, SHE LOOKS INTERESTING
In an effort to fight prostitution, Oklahoma City officials started a television
channel that broadcast the pictures of men caught cavorting with the local ladies
1 of the evening. Public shaming, it was thought, would keep potential clients 1
I away.
The plan backfired. Because the hookers' mugshots were also aired, it enabled, l
!would-he customers to identify them, facilitating future encounters. "It was
almost a promotional thing for them," a spokesman said. "It wasn't a deterrent at'
I all. - I
WHERE'D ALL THESE COPS COME FROM?
A man in Germany pulled his car over so he could snort cocaine, not realizing I
that he parked in a space reserved for police cars outside the Innestadt police
station. He was arrested.
YOU'RE NOT EXACTLY WHAT I PICTURED
An orthodox New York rabbi went on the Internet and arranged a date with a ,
13-pear-old girl named Katie, who he met in a chat room called "I Love Older
Men. -
Katie - turned out to he a middle-aged police detective who arrested the rabbi'
N 0 , Viva La France!
DITHERED TWITS
HELLO.
Thank you for coiling
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please press "E...
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Thank you for calling CINCIOM technical support. sera
4^ 3,qt,1 €42003
face? Try showing
up on the first day of
first grade with a
face that reads,
"President Reagan
to give State of the
Union Address. - I
was so embarrassed
Then, to top it all
off, the teacher tried
to pull my face off
because she thought
it was a joke. I spent
the next six years of
my life hearing
things like, "Hey,
let's go read Crazy
Newspaper Face
Boy's face," and, "What's hap
pening in Iraq today?" And you
thought you had it bad.
Puberty was the worst. Most of
you got pimples. I got typos. Not
only did I have to walk around
with a newspaper face, but the
words were spelled wrong.
Try dating with my face! "Hi,
how are you doing? My name is
Crazy Newspaper Face." Do you
see my point? When I actually
do find someone who can look
past my face and see who I really
am, I can't even kiss them with
out smearing today's news all
over their lips. I won't even go
over what it is like trying to have
sex with a face like mine. I've
never had a relationship last for
Karl Benacci, Features Editor
as soon as he arrived for the tryst
if you are experiencing
a problem with our
software,
more than three days
Try getting a job. I wanted to
be an astronaut when I grew up,
but all of my teachers said a boy
like me could never be one. Then
I wanted to be a fireman, but they
all said my face ',would catch fire.
The only place I can work is at a
newsstand, and even there people
ask me if they can read my face
because were all out of the New
York Times.
So, all I'm trying to say is, be
fore you start complaining about
how bad you have it, just think
what it would be like if you had a
newspaper for a face.
The Behrend Beacon
by Sprengelmeyer & Davis
If your problem involves
a looping integer
mapping error,
, tir press T.
*Mid - operand
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Innittently to Gs
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lase press "4_".