Russian “Food Patriots” Blow Up Bottles Of Coke In Protest

Pictures and videos uploaded on VK, Russia’s version of Facebook, show dozens of young protesters — sporting shirts with slogans like “Defend our children from overseas poison” and “I refuse Cola for Russia, I’ll drink to your health in kvass instead” — lining up plastic bottles of coke and, in unison, dropping in pieces of Mentos candy to chemically erupt a three-foot-high caramel-colored fountain.

The tried-and-true juvenile party trick, according to activist group Food Patriotism, underlines the corrosive nature of the beverage that has long been synonymous with U.S. capitalism. “This is an educational program for parents,” one activist told DNI news. “Imagine that happening in your kid’s stomach.”

Though they purport to be advocates for children’s health (a recent demonstration took place on Russia’s Children’s Day) and only target unhealthy, processed foods, Food Patriotism apparently gets its name from the “culinary diplomacy” movement, pioneered by the controversial ex-head of Russia’s Federal Consumer Protection Service, Gennady Onishchenko.

Onishchenko — perhaps best known for issuing a series of unorthodox health warnings, including an advisory against international travel (adapting to different climates takes a toll on one’s body) and participation in public protests (you might catch the flu) — advocated for bans on food imports from Moscow’s political enemies. He outright blocked imports of Moldovan wine as tensions rose over the breakaway, ethnic-Russian region of Transnistria.

Complete story at - Russian “Food Patriots” Blow Up Bottles Of Coke In Protest

Here's What Fracking Can Do to Your Health | Mother Jones

If you know one thing about fracking, it might be that the wells have been linked to explosive tap water. Of course, a tendency toward combustion isn't the biggest problem with gas-infused water; it's what could happen to you when you drink it.

Although the natural gas industry is notoriously tight-lipped about the ingredients of the chemical cocktails that get pumped down into wells, by now it's widely known that the list often includes some pretty scary, dangerous stuff, including hydrochloric acid and ethylene glycol (a.k.a. antifreeze). It's also no secret that well sites release hazardous gases like methane and benzene (a carcinogen) into the atmosphere.

So just how dangerous are fracking and other natural gas extraction processes for your health (not counting, for the sake of argument, explosions and earthquakes)? Is it true, as an activist-art campaign by Yoko Ono recently posited, that "fracking kills"?

The answer to that second question is probably not, especially in the short term and if you don't work on or live across the street from a frack site (which, of course, some people in fact do). But that doesn't mean it's okay to start fracking away next to kindergartens and nursing homes: Gas extraction produces a range of potentially health-endangering pollutants at nearly every stage of the process, according to a new paper by the California nonprofit Physicians Scientists & Engineers for Healthy Energy, released today in Environmental Health Perspectives, a peer-reviewed journal published by the National Institutes of Health.

Complete story at - Here's What Fracking Can Do to Your Health | Mother Jones



CC Photo by Flickr User greensefa Subject is Ban Fracking.