Sunday, June 21, 2009

A troublesome crystal

.

A while ago we were talking about kidney stones. One of the variety of things that kidney stones can be comprised of is Struvite. To the chemically inclined, it is ammonium magnesium phosphate.

But today I want to mention one of struvite's other incarnations.

Tinned fish.

Struvite crystals will grow in tinned fish, especially salmon. Looking for all the world like pieces of windscreen glass after a crash, the crystals will come in for testing as "glass found in a tin of fish".

But it is not glass. And it is not harmful.

Should you swallow some it will dissolve in your gastric juices.
...

4 comments:

  1. Lee - would you not agree that this is just silly reporting?

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8116933.stm

    They're trying to compare vegetable oils with lard.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Maybe it's just me .... but I was under the impression that "a salad" by pure definition was a selection of raw, chopped vegetables. If that were to be checked, then it would contain very few calories and you could eat it till Hell froze over without putting on weight. What the Beeb were reporting on were more instant meals than salads - they just happened to be served with some raw vegies.

    ReplyDelete
  3. hey I found that your "Chemist Kitchen" is not as bored that I thought, lol, honestly as I hate anything about science (included chemist maybe) at school long time ago.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Wow, what an amazing blog. I read (devoured) three older posts pages, before I followed and got here. Now I see to the right you have other blogs, I'll have to go there as well.

    Meanwhile, I have added your blog to Blogger's Cafe:
    http://avarchives.blogspot.com
    Under Library 2- Special interest.

    Off to do some blog hunting.

    AV

    ReplyDelete

Moderation cuts in six days after posting.