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In May, the Korean Food Association listed and published eight unsanitary practices carelessly committed by families and restaurants. Included was Korea's long-standing dietary tradition of sharing stews and soups. It said that since all sorts of germs could be transmitted if people partook from the same soup or stew, this practice should be avoided.
This might sound callous to those who have considered sharing stews and soups while sharing pleasant conversation to be a time honored practice of good manners, but the argument that Korea's uncommonly high incidence of stomach cancer may have something to do with Koreans' particular food culture -- in which several people eat from the same bowl of stew or soup and partake from the same glass of alcohol -- is gaining persuasiveness. In fact, it has been revealed that 70 to 80 percent of Koreans were infected with the helicobacter bacteria, which was pointed out as a main cause of stomach cancer by the WHO in 1994.
Experts point out that passing around the wine class, a major offender in passing along saliva-transmitted infections like the hepatitis virus, needed to be corrected. Because of dietary practices such as these, the ways to transmit diseases are endless. Daringly dabbing your stick of oden (Japanese-style boiled fish cakes) in the dish of soy sauce, for example. On a good business day, the saliva of hundreds may be mixed in that dish of soy sauce. And consider yourself fortunate if the dish of soy sauce was used just for one day. If the shop had kept the soy sauce out there for a couple of days at a time, it would be just like sharing the diseases of thousands.
Fire-roasted meat or fish, salted fish, and smoked foods also have carcinogenic substances. In particular, there are reports of considerable connections between colon cancer and meats. Grilling meats right on the fire, a process in Korean known as "jikhwa-gui," could give rise to PHA or bensopyrene as the oils that drop into the fire are burnt or the animal protein strands are burnt. The unusually high rate of stomach cancer in Japan is traced to the Japanese' love for roasted fish. PHA is found in car exhaust or diesel engines, while bensopyrene is a toxic substance in tobacco.
Moreover, it was revealed that some lower-quality olive oils imported from Spain, Turkey and Italy have large quantities of carcinogenic bensopyrene.
Experts agree that that there is a strong connection between these dietary practices and the occurrence of diseases. In particular, 30 to 40 percent of cancer cases are related to diet, a rate that would roughly correspond with smoking. Prof. Shin Myeong-hui of Sungkyungkwan University Medical School stressed, "To put this a different way, if we were to change only our dietary culture, we could prevent 35 percent of cancer cases."
Putting into practice a cancer-preventing diet would be surprisingly simple. Dr. Ah Yun-ok, president of the Korean Cancer Association, said, "It's basic that one eat foods rich in fiber like vegetables and fruits, and if we were to change improper dietary practices alone like eating spicy, high calorie foods, irregular meals, or preferences for instant food, we could prevent cancer to some extent."
(Kim Yeon-ju, hsh9799@yahoo.co.kr )
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