I hate, and I really do mean hate, corn flakes. They taste like cardboard, and they are hopeless as a cereal as they become soggy far too easily. Whilst they are nice and crunchy when dry, they aren’t particularly appetising. You can imagine how pleased I was when I found out that global warming is going to make corn flakes a potentially fatal meal [1]…finally we can rid the planet of these awful little flaky things.
Climate change could lead to “killer cornflakes” with the cereal carrying the most potent liver toxin ever recorded, an environmental health conference has been told.
The effects of the toxins, known as mycotoxins, have been known since the Middle Ages, when rye bread contaminated with ergot fungus was a staple part of the European diet, environmental health researcher Lisa Bricknell from Central Queensland University (CQU) said.
“People started suffering mass hallucinations, manic depression, gangrene, abortions, reduced fertility and painful, convulsive death,” Ms Bricknell told the 10th World Congress on Environmental Health in Brisbane on Tuesday.
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Mycotoxins can appear in the food chain as a result of the fungal infection of crops in the field or in storage, either by being eaten directly by humans, or by being used as livestock feed.
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Ms Bricknell said there had been outbreaks of high levels of aflatoxins in Australian crops in recent years and global warming was providing a new threat to food safety, with temperatures expected to rise in inland areas of the eastern states while rainfall was tipped to fall.
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“In a situation of climate change, if we are importing more products and imported products are not regulated … we can also expect that other countries may be experiencing similar problems with increased contamination.
The end of cornflakes almost makes me want the global temperature to stop falling.
Samuel