Offensive Halloween costumes, online abortion pills, and surplus cheese; that’s just a taste of some the trending stories you may have missed last week. ICYMI–check out the top stories from Law Street below!

1. University of Florida to Offer Halloween Counseling to Offended Students

Halloween is a frightening time of the year, although it does not normally send university students to counseling. The University of Florida said in a statement last week that it will be offering counseling students to students who are offended by Halloween costumes. Read the full article here.

2. How Irish Women Buy Pills Online To Get Around Abortion Laws

It may be hard to imagine that in 2016 having an abortion is still illegal in a country as developed as Ireland. As a traditionally Catholic country, it has strict laws regulating abortion, with the exception of instances in which the procedure would save the mother’s life. New data illustrates the way in which many Irish women seek abortions despite the country’s particularly restrictive laws. .

3. What Is America Going To Do With 1.2 Billion Pounds Of Surplus Cheese?

The U.S. has a humongous surplus of cheese. So big that every man, woman, and child in the country would have to grab an extra three pounds and finish that before the end of the year to work through it. The 1.2 billion pounds of cheese sitting in storage are not even the issue. Surplus meat, poultry, milk, and other dairy products are flooding the food market. Read the full article here.

Alexis Evans

Alexis Evans is an Assistant Editor at Law Street and a Buckeye State native. She has a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism and a minor in Business from Ohio University. Contact Alexis at aevans@LawStreetMedia.com.

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The U.S. has a humongous surplus of cheese. So big that every man, woman, and child in the country would have to grab an extra three pounds and finish that before the end of the year to work through it. The 1.2 billion pounds of cheese sitting in storage are not even the issue. Surplus meat, poultry, milk, and other dairy products are flooding the food market.

The glut of cheese on the shelves has caused prices to drop, which is great for most of us consumers who love a good block of cheddar or ball of mozzarella, but not so great for the dairy farmers. The revenue from dairy sales has dropped 35 percent over the past two years, causing the USDA to announce it will spend $20 million on purchasing surplus cheese to help farmers out.

Good news for the nation’s dairy producers & families in need: @USDA purchasing $20 million of cheese for food banks & pantries across U.S.

— Amy Klobuchar (@amyklobuchar) October 12, 2016

So why this huge agriculture surplus? Two years ago the international market was hot and prices high. Due to an excess amount of grains on the market, farmers felt confident in buying more cattle since the feed was really cheap. Production of meat and dairy products skyrocketed but unfortunately coincided with the rising value of the dollar. So international buyers were deterred from buying American products, which caused the products to pile up, and the prices to go down.

Some farmers can’t even get rid of the milk by giving it away but have to dump it in lakes–as much as tens of millions of gallons, according to the Wall Street Journal. Sadly many farms are also going out of business. In California alone, 53 dairy farms closed down during the first half of the year.

The U.S. government has a long history of supporting local farmers when prices collapse, by buying a ton of dairy products and simply putting them somewhere else. This program was abandoned in 2012 but now the USDA buys food and donates it to food banks, which could at least help the farmers a little bit. The USDA also has paid 11.2 million to the Dairy Margin Protection Program, a type of subsidized insurance for dairy farmers.

Environmentalists and others have criticized the USDA’s measures, saying it is wasteful and financially not durable. Governments purchasing excess products just to throw them away might affect the economic market in negative ways, even if it is a small contribution. What is the point of letting that much food go to waste when there obviously is not that high of a demand for it?

But one other reason for the diary glut is that adults are not really made to drink milk. Humans are the only species that can drink milk in adulthood, but many of us still struggle with that, since our bodies are not made to digest the sugar in it. Scientists say it is a weird and unnatural genetic adaptation that allows some of us to tolerate lactose.

There’s also the environmental argument that cows produce methane, which is actually a huge contributor to global warming, so the government should not be encouraging raising more cows and making the situation worse. “It’s outrageous that the government continues to prop up the dairy industry and the wasteful pollution caused by year after year of surplus,” said Stephanie Feldstein from Center for Biological Diversity in a statement.

Clearly dairy farmers have another view on the whole controversy. Overall, milk drinking has declined in the country lately for various reasons, so the future is looking tough for the dairy farms. Unless America takes after the French and starts eating cheese with every meal…and would that really be a bad thing?

Emma Von Zeipel

Emma Von Zeipel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. She is originally from one of the islands of Stockholm, Sweden. After working for Democratic Voice of Burma in Thailand, she ended up in New York City. She has a BA in journalism from Stockholm University and is passionate about human rights, good books, horses, and European chocolate. Contact Emma at EVonZeipel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Kraft Heinz and Walmart are being sued over the alleged use of wood pulp in their shredded cheese products. The lawsuits were filed in both Pennsylvania and California, in part in response to a story in Bloomberg last month that described FDA investigations into cheese producers who included wood pulp and cheaper cheddar cheese in the shredded cheeses they labeled as pure parmesan.

That Bloomberg article also looked into a number of other popular parmesan cheese brands to see if their contents included wood pulp, and the results and media coverage sparked outrage across the U.S. Now, some of those angered consumers are taking Kraft Heinz and Walmart to court over the use of wood pulp in their cheeses.

Bloomberg looked into the contents of some of the popular shredded cheese brands. The article reported:

Cellulose is a safe additive, and an acceptable level is 2 percent to 4 percent, according to Dean Sommer, a cheese technologist at the Center for Dairy Research in Madison, Wisconsin. Essential Everyday 100% Grated Parmesan Cheese, from Jewel-Osco, was 8.8 percent cellulose, while Wal-Mart Stores Inc.’s Great Value 100% Grated Parmesan Cheese registered 7.8 percent, according to test results. Whole Foods 365 brand didn’t list cellulose as an ingredient on the label, but still tested at 0.3 percent. Kraft had 3.8 percent.

Cellulose is added in to shredded cheese because it prevents clumping inside the bag. It can also be found in ice cream, and certain types of packaged pastries, as well as other popular commercial food products.

Cellulose isn’t necessarily harmful for humans to consume. As Jaydee Hanson, Policy Director at the Center for Food Safety explained:

You’d have to eat an awful lot of cheese for the cellulose to affect you. Most consumers don’t know but there’s actually cellulose in all kinds of foods — €”cereals, for instance. Basically, anything that is labeled ‘added fiber’ probably has cellulose in it.

However, the lawsuit is based on the fact that customers feel like they were defrauded when they purchased cheese that was mislabeled. So far, lawsuits have filed against Kraft Heinz and Walmart specifically, but given that the “wood pulp in shredded cheese” story doesn’t seem to be dying down, we may see similar lawsuits as the controversy continues to unfold.

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Lawsuits Against Shredded Cheese Producers Continue Over Wood Pulp Controversy appeared first on Law Street.

Move over marijuana, there’s a new form of contraband in town.

Milk.

Not just any milk, but raw milk, which is simply milk that hasn’t been pasteurized or heated to a temperature that kills illness-causing bacteria. It’s illegal to sell raw milk directly to consumers in about half of the United States. It’s also illegal to distribute raw milk packaged for consumption across state lines. Still, raw milk advocates stand up for their right to consume it. For example, protesters from a private buying club, Grassfed on the Hill, milked a cow on the Capitol lawn back in 2011 to protest the Food and Drug Administration’s action against a Pennsylvania farmer accused of selling raw milk across state lines.

Raw milk proponents say pasteurization kills flavor, nutritional benefits, and beneficial bacteria in addition to killing the harmful bacteria that it’s supposed to eradicate. Opponents say there’s simply no proof that raw milk has any benefits that pasteurized milk can’t confer, and that drinking it isn’t worth the health risk as it contains potentially dangerous bacteria. Both sides stand firm, creating controversy around one of America’s most wholesome and common commodities.

If you haven’t heard anything about raw milk yet, chances are you will. Warnings from regulatory and public health agencies are increasing, raw milk crusaders are banding together, and politicians are jumping on board to take a stand. As early as 2012, Ron Paul was using the topic of raw milk to rally a Wisconsin crowd, as seen in the video below.

Here’s what you need to know about the raw milk debate before it escalates to a full scale food fight.

Why do we pasteurize milk in the first place?

To understand the raw milk controversy, you need some background on pasteurization and why we do it in the first place.

Before milk makes its way to a carton, it starts in a cow’s udders, which are basically saggy mammary glands. (Yuck.) Like other bodily fluids, the milk produced in these glands contains bacteria, both good and bad. Unlike many other farm foods, milk isn’t usually cooked before consumption. Since cooking kills pathogens, many people ended up drinking a cocktail of bacterial specimens before pasteurization was invented.  In the early 1800s, illnesses like tuberculosis, scarlet fever, and typhoid fever were often transmitted through milk because of the unclean dairy practices common at the time.

Luckily for the American dairy industry, the French love their wine. They love it so much that Emperor Napoleon III gave a scientist by the name of Louis Pasteur the noble task of stopping wine spoilage. Pasteur soon became famous for nuancing a process that would keep wine from spoiling without changing its flavor. It involved heating the liquid to the right temperature for the right amount of time to destroy spoilage bacteria. He called it pasteurization.

Pasteurization was applied to dairy in the late 1800s, and incidence of disease caused by milk decreased drastically. At first it was only used for dairy farmed in unsafe conditions, but soon it was leveraged to reduce risk of illness for nearly all dairies. From there, pasteurization grew to dominate the dairy industry.

What are the laws regarding raw milk?

Although individual states have always regulated their own dairy processing, the Standard Milk Ordinance, now called the Grade A Pasteurized Milk Ordinance (PMO), was implemented in 1924 to help each state meet certain standardized quality recommendations to ensure public safety.

Raw milk didn’t become a truly legal issue until the 1980s when Public Citizen filed a petition with the Food and Drug Administration that requested a ban on raw milk and raw milk products. The FDA had been trying to require that all products labeled “milk” be pasteurized since the 1970s, but met resistance and delays from the Department of Health and Human Services and certified raw milk producers. After hearing witness accounts and testimonies, the courts concluded that raw milk posed a serious threat to public health and should be banned from interstate sale.

It has been illegal to distribute raw milk from state to state ever since.

Since each state makes its own rules about the sale of raw milk, commerce within state borders gets a bit more complicated. Some states, like Florida and Virginia, prohibit all sales of raw milk. In Kentucky, you can only purchase raw goat milk straight from the farm. In New Hampshire, you can buy raw milk at a retail outlet, but it must adhere to uniform coliform standards. Things like cow-share agreements, where customers pay a fee for a percentage of cow’s milk, make things even more complicated. Alaska is an example of one state that allows “share” operations. Check out this chart for state-by-state raw milk regulations.

What Proponents Say About Raw Milk 

The supporters of raw milk tout benefits like taste and nutrition with religious fervor. Some even claim other benefits like decreased allergies and less acne.

The Taste Argument

People who’ve tasted raw milk and liked it keep going back for more. In this study of dairy producers who drink raw milk, 72 percent cite taste as their primary motive.

Raw milk lovers say it’s richer, sweeter, and more complex. Connoisseurs credit subtle flavors to a cow’s diet of natural greens. Many raw milk producers  “pasture” their cows, allowing them to eat greens as nature intended, as opposed to feeding them popular corn- and grain-based feeds.

Beyond drinking milk, raw milk cheese has a cult following, especially in France. Many of the country’s legendary cheeses are made with raw milk, which savants say imparts enticing characteristics unmatched in pasteurized varieties. In this 1998 New York Times article on the subject, cheese maker Bernard Antony said, ”Pasteurized cheese is not cheese; it’s like plastic.”

The Health Argument

In addition to being a holy grail of nuanced flavors, many raw milk advocates flock to raw milk because of its purported health benefits. They believe pasteurization kills beneficial enzymes and good bacteria. They also say raw milk can help quell body pains, reduce allergies, cure lactose intolerance, and more as evidenced from this Realmilk.com testimonials page.

Supporting studies for the claims are patchy. This study does suggest there might be an association with consumption of farm milk and asthma and allergies, but not enough to be conclusive. A Standford University School of Medicine study found that raw milk does not reduce lactose intolerance, in direct conflict with some testimonials and surveys. Why the clash between testimony and science? More research is needed to find out.

The Liberty Argument

Back in 2011, FDA officials raided Rawesome Foods and arrested its owner, James Stewart, and other raw milk suppliers for selling raw milk directly to customers. Apparently, Stewart had failed to show up for previous court appearances to face charges of shady fundraising, among other things. Even so, the arrest struck a cord with raw milk advocates who showed up to Stewart’s hearing wearing “raw milk heals” t-shirts.

They didn’t care if Stewart’s actions were illegal, they cared that he was fighting for their rights to consume raw milk. They believe that it should be individuals, not the government, who dictate what consumers put in their bodies.

What Opponents Say About Raw Milk  

Opponents, most specifically regulatory officials, argue that consuming raw milk and dairy products pose a serious threat to health, a threat that exceeds any potential benefits. And why take an unnecessary risk?

Watch the emotional video below that plays to the fear of what can come from taking unnecessary risks.

They also say that there aren’t any benefits of raw milk that you can’t get from pasteurized milk. These quotes from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Raw Milk Questions and Answers page address some common raw milk proponent beliefs:

Many studies have shown that pasteurization does not significantly change the nutritional value of milk — pasteurized milk is rich in proteins, carbohydrates, and other nutrients. Heat slightly affects a few of the vitamins found in milk– thiamine, vitamin B12, and vitamin C– but milk is only a minor source of these vitamins.

While it’s true that the heating process of pasteurization does inactivate some enzymes in milk, the enzymes in raw animal milk are not thought to be important in human health.

There are no health benefits from drinking raw milk that cannot be obtained from drinking pasteurized milk that is free of disease-causing bacteria. The process of pasteurization of milk has never been found to be the cause of chronic diseases, allergies, or developmental or behavioral problems.

Why do they say raw milk is such a threat to health?

Unlike many other farm foods (e.g. milk and eggs), milk isn’t usually cooked before consumption, so there isn’t a step to kill illness-causing bacteria. Milk’s low acid content and high protein levels make it easier for pathogens to grow.

Even if milk comes out of the cow without bacteria, it can become contaminated easily during the farming process. Dairy farms breed pathogens naturally, even when they take necessary precautions. Pathogens can be transferred on multiple occasions on the farm:

• The milk might accidentally come in contact with cow feces
• The cow might have an udder infection (mastitis)
• The cow might have an undetected illness
• Bacteria on the cow’s skin might get into the milk
• Dirt from the barns and processing equipment might get on the milk
• Animal pests living in barns, like rats and insects, might contaminate the milk
• Humans with soiled hands or clothing might contaminate the milk

For these reasons and more, officials cite that pasteurization is the only way to make sure the pathogens in milk won’t pose a threat to human health. They say even farmers who follow hygienic practices and test their raw milk cannot guarantee safety.

Supporting Data

According to the CDC, outbreaks caused by raw milk  have increased from 30 in 2007-2009 to 51 in 2010-2012. The outbreaks are most commonly caused by Campylobacter, Escherichia coli, and Salmonella and include symptoms like diarrhea, vomiting, muscle aches, and fever. Relative to the amount of raw milk that is consumed, the risk of an outbreak from raw milk is 150 times greater than the risk of an outbreak from pasteurized milk.

Shouldn’t science stop this debate?

Advocates from both sides point to studies, surveys, testimonials, and data to prove their points, but still each side clings to their beliefs with evangelical conviction. In a literature review requested by the Maryland House of Delegates’ Health and Government Operations Committee, the authors point to a need for both raw milk advocates and regulatory agencies to be open to discussion and compromise. Surely both sides of this contentious debate can find some common ground in the future.

Will raw milk become a substance relegated to the black market? Will federal lawmakers cave and loosen boundaries on interstate trade? Only time will tell, but 2015 promises to be an interesting year for those on both sides of the aisle in the raw milk debate.

Resources

Primary

CDC: Raw Milk Questions and Answers

Rev Sci Tech Off Int Epiz: Milk Pasteurisation and Safety: A Brief History and Update

CDC: Increased Outbreaks Associated with Nonpasteurized Milk, United States, 2007–2012

NIH: Food Safety Hazards Associated With Consumption of Raw Milk.

NIH: A Survey of Foodborne Pathogens in Bulk Tank Milk and Raw Milk Consumption Among Farm Families in Pennsylvania.

CDC: Raw (Unpasteurized) Milk

U.S. District Court: Public Citizen v Heckler

Additional

New Yorker: Raw Deal

Chris Kresser: Raw Milk Reality: Benefits of Raw Milk

How Stuff Works: How Pasteurization Works

Raw Milk Facts: State by State Raw Milk Legislation

USDA: How Do Cows Make Milk?

The New York Times: How We Poison Our Children

NPR: Unlocking France’s Secrets to Safer Raw Milk Cheese

The New York Times: The French Resist Again: This Time, Over Cheese

Marler Clark: A Legal History of Raw Milk in the United States

Ashley Bell

Ashley Bell communicates about health and wellness every day as a non-profit Program Manager. She has a Bachelor’s degree in Business and Economics from the College of William and Mary, and loves to investigate what changes in healthy policy and research might mean for the future. Contact Ashley at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post What’s the Deal With Raw Milk? appeared first on Law Street.

We’re all familiar with “A Christmas Carol” and the old miser named Ebenezer Scrooge who achieves enlightenment after a night of ghostly visits. But it turns out that Scrooge’s haunts might have been helped along by something he ate or drank.

Eating and drinking (especially the extreme forms practiced throughout the holiday season) can impact your body enough to cause memorable dreams, nightmares, and sometimes hallucinations.

Below, I’ll explore the mental effects of holiday food through the lens of Scrooge’s misadventures. What actions might explain Scrooge’s nocturnal visits from a troupe of formidable ghosts? What does it mean for you? Let’s find out…

He Could Have Eaten a Hallucinogenic Food

I’m not saying that old Ebenezer was purposefully tripping on magic mushrooms. Quite a few foods might have contributed to his visions, or even cause you to see some weird things after Christmas dinner.

Moldy Bread

Specifically, Moldy rye bread. Ergot or (Claviceps Purpurea) is a fungus common on grasses, cereal crops, and ryes. It’s also the source of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD). Scrooge’s cold, wet, pantry would have favored the growth of this fungus, which causes hallucinations when ingested.

Ergot has such extreme effects that researchers Linnda Caporael and Mary L. Matossian have linked it to the Salem Witch Trials. If it could have caused that hysteria, it could have caused Scrooge’s ghostly episode.

Nutmeg

Nutmeg becomes psychoactive when taken in large quantities. How much? More than the amount that usually dusts a mug of eggnog. It would take more than two tablespoons (two whole seeds) to produce any hallucinogenic effects. Nutmeg has mind altering properties because it contains myristicin, a chemical similar to amphetamine and mescaline.

Would Scrooge consume enough nutmeg to trip? In his day, men were sometimes known to carry around their own nutmeg graters in case an appropriate beverage presented itself. Nutmeg was used for headaches, and turkeys were even stuffed with it. While it’s unlikely that he was judiciously grinding copious amounts of nutmeg into his eggnog, it’s almost certainly something he could access. You shouldn’t worry though, unless you’re really planning on overindulging in nutmeg this holiday season.

Fish

Hallucinatory fish poisoning, or ichthyoallyeinotoxism, is a rare type of food poisoning that causes central nervous system disturbances, especially hallucinations and nightmares. Ciguatera poisoning is the most well-known type of hallucinatory fish poisoning. Fish become contaminated with ciguatoxins when they eat the toxin-producing seaplant, dinoflagellates. They can also become contaminated by eating another fish with ciguatoxins in its system.

Eating exotic fish usually causes hallucinatory fish poisoning, so it’s unlikely that London-dwelling Scrooge would have this to blame for his visit by ghosts.

What this means for your holiday: If you’re hoping to avoid holiday hallucinations, steer clear of strange new fish, don’t overdose on the nutmeg, and check your bread twice for suspicious mold spores.

He Could Have Been Over-Caffeinated

If Scrooge was in fact such a “tight-fisted hand at the grindstone”, maybe he owed his disciplined work ethic to profuse amounts of caffeine. And too much caffeine could lead to hallucinations, says this Durham University Study.

The researchers found that heavy caffeine users–those who drink the amount in seven cups of coffee or more a day–were more likely to have hallucinations or hear voices than low caffeine users.

Why does this happen? It might be stress, which caffeine tends to heighten, even physiologically. A stressed body releases the hormone cortisol, and a stressed and caffeinated body releases even more. The researchers believe the extra release of cortisol might be where the hallucinations come in, but they need to do more research to tell for certain.

What it means for your holiday: If you’re sleep deprived over the holidays, go ahead and have more caffeine, but draw the line at seven cups.

He Could Have Eaten Some Cheese

Could cheese cause vivid dreams? A study by the British Cheese Board suggests there might be some truth to this–if Scrooge had nodded off and dreamt of Marley, that is. The study found that consuming different types of cheese could encourage different types of dreams. Listen to this NPR spot to find out more.

Other scientific studies investigating a cheese-dream connection are limited. But preliminary results of a study on vitamin B-6, of which cheese is an excellent source, produced some compelling information. The results showed that people taking higher doses of vitamin B-6 reported higher dream salience; their dreams were more vivid, emotional, colorful, or just plain bizarre.

What it means for your holiday: If you want to have vivid dreams, taking a tour through the old holiday cheese plate might not be a bad idea.

He Might Have Just Eaten Too Much and Nodded Off

Scrooge lived alone. He also was trying to save money by keeping his house sparsely lit. Darkness + quiet = a perfect recipe for nodding off in the easy chair. Scrooge could have drifted off to sleep as soon as the stimulation provided by his sparse dinner had ended. Eating just before bed might be the perfect recipe for weird dreams, including those featuring the return of a deceased former boss.

Food has been shown to affect the levels of neurotransmitters in the brain that control time spent in rapid eye movement, or REM, sleep. You are most likely to dream in REM sleep.

For example, the chemical tyramine-a (found in dairy, meat, poultry and fish) increases brain levels of noradrenaline, also called norepinephrine. Noradrenaline produces the body’s response to fear and is sometimes even referred to as the “fight or flight” chemical. If your noradrenaline levels peak and you have a nightmare, your heart rate increases and your muscles tense up in response. Your heightened response to the visions in your nightmares would make them more memorable upon waking. Noradrenaline also makes blood pressure rise which could make dreams more nightmarish.

Other experts suggest a less complex explanation for vivid dreams following a late night binge. With an uncomfortably full stomach, you tend to toss and turn more, waking yourself up and interrupting your dreams. Dream interruptions often lead to heightened memories of the dream and the general sense that you’ve had more dreams than usual.

What it means for your holiday: If you tend to have nightmares, you might want to steer clear of the fridge on your way to bed. Those holiday leftovers could wreak havoc on your dreams.

He Might Have Had Too Much “Holiday Spirit”

It was hardly uncommon for gentlemen in those days to have a “nightcap” (stiff drink) before bed. They thought it might keep them warm throughout their nights like the actual nightcaps they wore on their heads. Scrooge wanted to save money on coal for heating, so he might have indulged in this nightly ritual. Little did he know that drinking so close to bedtime can lead to disturbed sleep and nightmares.

Alcohol interferes with REM sleep and leads to frequent sleep interruptions, just like overeating. So again, you can remember your dreams more vividly. Also drinking alcohol suppresses REM sleep and your brain tries to make up for lost time later on. So, in the morning, your brain might try to cram in some REM sleep and your dreams might become more bizarre and frightening as result.

What it means for your holiday: Craving a holiday night cap? Just drink it at least three hours before bedtime or prepare for some nightmares.

He Might Have Had an Alcohol Problem

Without any concerned family or friends to stage an intervention, Scrooge could have been a closet alcoholic. In rare cases, chronic alcohol abuse could lead to psychosis, the state of losing contact with reality.

Alcohol is a neurotoxin that can have many damaging effects on the brain. It can even induce alcohol related psychosis. Psychosis has been observed:

• during heavy intoxication
• as a symptom of alcohol withdrawal
• in disorders resulting from years of alcohol dependency

Long time alcoholics might be thiamine (B1) deficient which could lead to Korsakoff syndrome, a brain disorder associated with hallucinations, loss of memory, and confabulation.

What it means for your holiday: Even if you’ve had one too many eggnogs, you probably won’t start having visions. Alcohol induced psychosis is a concern for chronic alcohol abusers.

He Could Have One of These Conditions

Aside from one-off actions that might lead strange visions, some seemingly commonplace medical conditions cause hallucinations. Many of them could result from dietary choices like, gastroenteritis, gastritis, peptic ulcers, vitamin B12 deficiency, and low blood sugar. Scrooge could have suffered from any of these, and been none the wiser.

What it means for your holiday: Having a blood sugar crash after a unwise cookie binge? It might be the reason you’re hearing friendly voices telling you to eat even more…

A Hallucination Sidenote  

Don’t get too scared. Food-induced hallucinations like these occur rarely. But experiencing a hallucination doesn’t automatically diagnose you with mental illness.

This video explains how anyone can hallucinate:

Pass the Sugar Plums, Please

So there could be an easy explanation for what happened to Ebenezer Scrooge. The ghosts he saw might have been encouraged by beef, gravy, or an underdone potato. Now that you know what you know about the possible effects of holiday eating, you can prepare accordingly.

The hallucinations are pretty rare so you probably don’t need to worry about that. The worst your holiday eating and drinking will probably do is cause nightmares and disturbed sleep. Luckily, it’s not totally out of your control. This blogger has some advice to ensure your dreams are full of sugar plums and not sinister spirits:

• Eat dinner about 4 hours before bed.
• Stop drinking (everything) 90 minutes before bed.
• If you do have late night snacks, keep them high in carbohydrates and medium to low on the protein. A slice of whole wheat toast topped with peanut butter or cheese is an excellent choice.
• Steer clear of anything too acidic, like pasta with red sauce, that might lead to acid reflux.

Sweet dreams and happy holidays!

Resources

Primary

Durham University: High Caffeine Intake Linked to Hallucination Proneness

Med Scape: Alcohol-Related Psychosis

Centre Antipoison: Hallucinatory Fish Poisoning (ichthyoallyeinotoxism): Two Case Reports From the Western Mediterranean and Literature Review

NIH: Effects of Pyridoxine on Dreaming: a Preliminary Study

Additional

Bon Appetit: Foods That Make You Hallucinate

New Scientist: The Nightmare Before Christmas

Psychology Today: Psychoactive Spices – Bon Appetite!

NPR: Study: Eating Cheese Can Alter Your Dreams

Live Strong: Do B Vitamins Give People Vivid Dreams?

Ashley Bell

Ashley Bell communicates about health and wellness every day as a non-profit Program Manager. She has a Bachelor’s degree in Business and Economics from the College of William and Mary, and loves to investigate what changes in healthy policy and research might mean for the future. Contact Ashley at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Holiday Hallucinations: Can You Really Have Visions of Sugar Plums? appeared first on Law Street.