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WHO: Drinking Extremely Hot Coffee, Tea 'Probably' Causes Cancer (usatoday.com)
An anonymous reader writes from a report via USA Today: The World Health Organization reports that drinking coffee, tea and other beverages at temperatures hotter than 149 degrees Fahrenheit may lead to cancer of the esophagus. These hot beverages can injure cells in the esophagus and lead to the formation of cancer cells, said Mariana Stern, an associate professor of preventative medicine and urology at the University of Southern California's Keck School of Medicine. But scientists did say that if you drink coffee at cooler temperatures, it is not only safe but it may decrease of the risk of liver cancer by 15%, according to research published in Lancet Oncology. Previously, the International Agency for Research on Cancer ruled coffee was a "possible carcinogenic" in 1991. The research involved Stern and 22 other scientists from 10 countries, who examined about 1,000 studies on more than 20 types of cancer.
McFact 1: MCDonald's knows that people like their coffee hotter than they can drink, as they rarely drink it immeidately, and often take it to another desintation, like work, to drink it, or like to hold the hot cup to warm cold hands.
McFact 2: coffee should be brewed at near-boiling, so "proper" temperature coffee is, by definition, stale.
McFact 3: serving cold coffee would lose them more money than the suits (at least according to bean counters, probably hired from Ford, after they were fired for counting the Pinto's beans).
McFact 3: the person in question literally poured it on herself. She took off the lid, that prevents deformation of the circular opening of the cup, then crushed the cup with her legs, forcing the liquid out and onto her body. Had she left the lid on, or used a cup holder, the incident would never have happened.
Learn to love Alaska
Beef is cooked once it hits 58C (136.4F).
My personal preference for cooking a steak is to put it in a 60C oven for an hour and a half, tightly wrapped in cellophane. This will ensure that the meat is fully cooked, but still rare (it's completely pink throughout). I then throw it in a hot pan for a minute on each side, and it's done. Juicy and tender.
I got this method from a professional chef who cooks full fillets in this restaurant like this - when someone orders a fillet, he cuts a steak off the already-fully-cooked fillet and then just caramelises the outsides quickly in a hot pan. He'll use a thermometer to ensure that the beef is 58C before cutting it.
Other chefs use a Sous Vide to do this.
Serving at a temperature has absolutely nothing to do with consuming at that temperature.
Hot drinks are served hot because that brings out more subtle aromas when your mouth is around the surface of the drink and nose is just above it. If you take in a very small sip, you are not scalded for 3 reasons :
1. You might suck in the foam, that is of slightly lower temperature, and very low specific heat being mainly air.
2. Even if it is not foam, a sample from the surface is of a lower temperature than from deep within the cup. This way you can enjoy the aroma longer - which is over half the fun in most hot drinks anyway.
3. Heat from a very small sip quickly dissipates around your external skin - which is typically colder than internal body parts like gums, back of the tongue etc.
There are restaurants allowing / encouraging people to barbecue their food themselves - it doesn't mean people have to eat the 400 degree F food straight from the barbecue, or poke their eyes with firewood at 1000 degree F. All Americans should sue their own mothers for not permanently attaching glasses at birth which read "Caution : life has risks", except of course the mothers who have been prudent enough to do this.
Bingo Dictionary - Pragmatist, n. A myopic idealist.
Very similar to what my mother's coworker once said, that cancer is simply nature's failsafe to make sure that eternal life just does not happen. Survive all the other stuff and the cancer WILL get you eventually.
Not necessarily; much research over the recent decade suggests that we die, eventually, of old age, when the body runs out of viable stem cells, because every time they divide, they lose a bit of the telomeres: the bit of DNA at the end of each chromosome, if my memory serves me. When the telomeres are too short, the cells can divide anymore. There was an interesting article a few days ago, about one of the world's oldest women - apparently all of a certain line of cells in her blood could be seen to arise from just two, individual stem cells, where a younger person would have - thousands? Certainly a lot more than two. When we run out of stem cells, we can no longer repair our bodies.
Cancer is seen more in the elderly for that very reason too. Every time cells divide, there is a certain likelyhood that something goes wrong; in a sense we all have cancer all the time. Fortunately our immune system is able to keep up, clearing out the failed cells that don't kill themselves in apoptosis. If the immune system is under too much pressure, whether it is because of lack of nutrition, stress or repeated tissue damage, the risk of cancer increases, so it isn't surprising if consuming too hot food or drinks can contribute to cancer. Every time a tissue is damaged, it is replaced by tissue that is slightly less well supplied with blood, which means that the immune system cannot patrol the tissue as effectively: cancer cells get the chance to survive longer.
Here's the really, REALLY big question.
Do you want to live a life of fun, good food, fun entertainment and hot beverages, then die at 70, or do you want to live a life of measuring everything daily in a state of panic that you might get cancer and then die at 74 - that is, if you don't accidentally walk in front of a bus when you're 40?
Can you only enjoy life by hurting yourself? I used to drink too much and eat loads of unhealthy things; I feel I enjoy life so much more now that I don't touch alcohol or eat foods with too much sugar, salt and fat. And it's not about feeling holier-than-thou, it has much more to do with the fact that I can enjoy doing things I would not have been able to before, like walking for a whole day in nature or working on one of my projects that involve heavy lifting and strenuous work. Getting drunk or high is fun, but only for a short while - it's like pissing youself to keep warm.
I see you're following the standard Slashdot policy of letting no single comment ever lie with just a nod of the head, you must complain, whine, humiliate that in some way the poster is WRONG and MISSED THE POINT. Jesus, this annoying community.
That person's oncologist made a solid point, it's basically true, and wasn't trying to explain your hypothetical "teenager with cancer", even though guess what? Teens in medieval times got cancer too!
WHO is a useful organization that does a lot of useful things, but they are subject to the same sloppy data analysis that plagues a lot of scientific papers nowadays - all too influenced by outside economic forces and preconceived notions. Even their lame-duck backpedaling on coffee was caveated with "maybe hot drinks", which is another stab in the dark at what might have conceivably tainted their findings.
Chevy Chase said it best - "scientists have determined that saliva causes cancer, but only when taken in small doses over a long period of time."
Also not that these things are true for groups of people, not about individuals.A doctor who investigates old people also noted that it is remarkable that of all the people she interviewed all had a very uplifiting and positive viuw on life.
She only interviews people who are older than 100. The first person they investigated was my great aunt who was the oldest person in the world at that moment.
She gave her body to science with the specific intructions that it should be used for others and as many as possible to learn. In a way, she open sourced her body.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Coffee is to be served hot. There's no problem with serving it hotter than other restaurants do. I'd see that as a good thing. Unless you can point to standards and regulations that require coffee to be served below a certain temperature, your "McFact No. 1" is a failure.
Can you recognize that there is a temperature at which McDonalds would serve coffee that would be too hot?
Or do you want there to be standards and regulations, and until there are, what do you want McDonald's to do? Serve coffee? Stop serving coffee? Not be idiots, serving coffee they know can cause severe burns?
Hot coffee can cause burns. McDonalds settling cases is no different than a super market settling cases when idiots slip and fall despite the wet floor signs. it does not indicate a problem with the coffee, it indicates problems with the customers (they're idiots) and the legal system (it's easier to pay idiots to go away than it is to fight them in court and hope the idiots on the jury side with you against a fellow idiot). "McFact No. 2 is a failure.
Not at all, it indicates a failure to address a problem because they believed they had a cheaper option. McDonald's found out that the public in the form of this jury didn't buy it. So perhaps they changed their behavior.
Go to McDonalds. They add the cream and sugar.
I don't care how serious the woman's injuries were. They were caused by HER spilling the coffee she knew to be hot. If you buy a knife and cut yourself like an idiot, can you sue for the knife being too sharp? But what if you like, cut yourself really badly? Does that somehow change who is culpable? (I wouldn't be surprised if you could trot out cases where exactly this happened. That doesn't make the reasoning any less ludicrous, however.). "McFact No. 3" is a failure.
Let's say the knife was stored in a case provided with it, but it was designed improperly, and cut through it? would you blame the manufacturer or not? What if the knife instead of cutting through your flesh, cut through your bone, your car, and in effect, was a light-saber? Would you say that's a problem?
I get it, you want to characterize it as the actions of an idiot. That's the story YOU want to push.
What about other stories? How do you react? We don't know, because, of course, you want to come across in a certain way, without realizing how you really sound.
Yes, the little old lady said she was a nice little old lady and only wanted her medical bills paid. Is she also selling a used car that she only ever drove on Sundays, to and from church? "McFact No. 4" is a failure because it has nothing to do with anything.
Not at all! Her character was widely assailed during this case, she was portrayed as seeking a payday. Or an idiot. Just like you did.
That's why this is relevant. Either she's an idiot, and behaved improperly, or not.
A rando (no typo here) McDonald's employee claimed McDonald's was aware of the risk? Of course they're aware. They're also aware of the risk of operating a drive through window. People could incorrectly drive their cars and hit things! Further, the rando employee cannot speak to whether or not "most customers wouldn't think it was possible". If such testimony as admitted, McDonald's lawyers failed. "McFact No. 5" is a failure. A rando employee's comments about McDonald's awareness that coffee is hot doesn't mean McDonald's is at fault for someone spilling coffee on themselves. Coffee being hot, and hot things causing burns, is common sense. You'd be hard pressed to find an animal that doesn't know this, let alone a human.
What are you talking about? Animals don't know that well at all, that's why Zoos and other animal care facilities have to take SEVERE precautions when it comes to stuff being hot. It's like you know nothing about facilities management. So do areas that have children. You may