10/24/2025 Friday
Thanks to AI, I can process these videos/podcasts more efficiently. After finishing the entire discussion within 20 mins, I used Google Gemini (apparently only google AI can access youtube resources for now, Youtube's under Google anyway) to "Fact check and summarize" it. Learned a few things from Allie Beth Stuckey's (ABS from now on) podcast:
This video, "The Truth About Flour Enrichment," is an episode of The Allie Beth Stuckey Show that discusses the history and potential unintended consequences of federal mandates to enrich grain products with vitamins.
My own summary: Niacin (Vitamin B3) deficiency can cause pellagra: dermatitis (skin itches), diarrhea, dementia, and death). Government took action to enrich B3 in flour, success; However, folic acid (B vitamin) despite helps prevent neural tube defects in newborns, there's correlation of it causing colorectal cancer in adults. This correlation has been challenged as far as causation goes, so don't buy everything ABS' guest Michelle Visser is selling. And with ChatGPT's help in reminders (it can't access Youtube but drew online resources pertaining to the video title: ichelle describes moving from suburban life to a rural homestead in New England (14 acres in a 220-year‐old farmhouse) in order to pursue self-sufficiency: raising dairy cows, meat & laying hens, ducks, rabbits, pigs, a large garden, and producing maple sugar & syrup. So this is really a typical conservative American's (i.e. Brett Cooper) dream: Homesteading.
Summary of the video by AI: The video focuses on two primary examples of government-mandated flour enrichment:
- Pellagra and Niacin: The speaker describes the deadly disease pellagra (the "four D's": dermatitis, diarrhea, dementia, and death) that was rampant in the American South due to a niacin (Vitamin B3) deficiency [33:04]. She frames the subsequent mandatory enrichment of flour with niacin as a public health success that effectively eradicated the disease in the United States.
- Folic Acid and Colorectal Cancer: She then pivots to the mandatory fortification of enriched grains with folic acid (another B vitamin) in the mid-1990s, which was implemented to prevent neural tube defects (like spina bifida) in newborns [33:24].
- The speaker cites a study from the Tufts University Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging that reported a concerning correlation: the previous 15-year trend of declining colorectal cancer rates in the U.S. and Canada reversed after fortification began [33:43].
- The hypothesis discussed is that while folic acid prevents birth defects in healthy people, high levels of it can act as a growth accelerator for pre-existing, microscopic cancerous polyps in older adults [33:55].
- She concludes by using this case as a "perfect example" of government intervention with good intentions leading to negative, unintended consequences for a large segment of the population [34:10].
Fact Check:
The core historical and scientific points raised in the video are largely accurate, though the conclusion about the causal link between folic acid and cancer is based on a hypothesis that remains a subject of scientific debate.
| Video Claim | Fact Check Status | Supporting Facts |
| Pellagra was a severe niacin deficiency disease in the U.S. South, and mandatory niacin enrichment of flour eliminated it. | ACCURATE | Pellagra, caused by a lack of niacin (Vitamin B3), was a major killer in the South in the early 20th century. After the deficiency was confirmed in 1937, state laws mandating the enrichment of flour with niacin in the 1940s successfully eliminated the disease in the United States. |
| Mandatory folic acid fortification was implemented to prevent neural tube defects. | ACCURATE | Folic acid fortification, which became mandatory in 1998, is a well-documented public health success credited with significantly reducing the incidence of severe birth defects like spina bifida. |
| A Tufts University study linked folic acid fortification to a rise in colorectal cancer rates. | ACCURATE (Temporal Association) | Research from the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University (led by Dr. Joel Mason) reported a temporal association (a correlation over time) between the start of folic acid fortification and an abrupt reversal of the downward trend in colorectal cancer incidence in the U.S. and Canada in the late 1990s. The researchers hypothesized that, while protective in healthy cells, excess folic acid could promote the growth of existing, undetected polyps. |
| Folic acid fortification caused an increase in colorectal cancer rates. | DEBATABLE (Unproven) | The research cited by the speaker only established a temporal association, which does not prove a causal link. Later, large-scale studies have offered reassurance, with some finding no link between high folic acid intake from fortified foods/supplements and an increased risk of colorectal cancer. The overall relationship between high folic acid intake and cancer risk remains complex and is still an area of ongoing scientific investigation. |
10/20/2025 Monday
DYI on sequencing your own DNA for $1,100.
10/19/2025 Sunday
Art of the day: The Unjust Judge and the Importunate Widow (The Parables of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ),
Engraving after Sir John Everett Millais (1829–1896), Engraved and printed by Dalziel Brothers (1839–93)
Issued in 1864, Wood engraving on paper
© Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Parable from Luke 18:1-8.
By Fr. Patrick van der Vorst:
Our engraving, issued in 1864, is part of a larger series, illustrating The Parables of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. It took Millais seven years to design twenty images inspired by New Testament Parables for the Dalziel Brothers who would publish them. The resulting prints are considered pinnacles of wood engraved illustration. The artist wrote to his publishers, "I can do ordinary drawings as quickly as most men, but these designs can scarcely be regarded in the same light—each Parable I illustrate perhaps a dozen times before I fix [the image]." Millais worked and reworked the designs for each parable over and over again. In our engraving we see the widow pleading before the judge, who turns his face aside with an expression of cold rejection, almost of disgust. A guard begins to pull her away, while the judge sits surrounded by an opulent entourage. Their presence only heightens the sense of his pride and self-importance, in stark contrast to woman's humility and need.
These wood engravings, I would like to see the original wooden blocks.