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Fujitsu Is Growing Radiation-Free Lettuce In Japan's Fukushima Prefecture
Taffykay (2047384) writes "Tech giant Fujitsu has opened an organic lettuce farm in Japan's Fukushima prefecture. Blending agriculture, technology, and medicine in a former microchip factory, the company has developed a new variety of organic lettuce that is not only lower in potassium and nitrates than standard varieties, but is also radiation-free."
The study that originally connected nitrates with cancer risk and caused the scare in the first place has since been discredited after being subjected to a peer review. There have been major reviews of the scientific literature that found no link between nitrates or nitrites and human cancers, or even evidence to suggest that they may be carcinogenic.
That's because those studies were of nitrates, not the high-temperature products of cooking nitrate-laden organics like beef: as nitrosamines.
As I posted in another link above: nitrates themselves are known to be pretty benign. But there is plenty of good evidence over a period of decades that cooking nitrate-cured food (like hot dogs) produces nitrosamines that are well-known (and long studied) carcinogens.
Nitrates themselves are probably not much concern. In fact nitrates are known, often-prescribed vasodilators. (Know anybody who takes nitroglycerine for heart problems?)
As with so many other things, nitrates are not necessarily evil. It is what you do with them that counts.