From: hrubin@stat.purdue.edu
In article ,
Paul E. Black wrote:
>On Sat, 26 Feb 2005 14:33:33 +0000, Sander Vesik wrote:
>> Michael Smith wrote:
>> But of course, in realty, most humans eat un unbalanced and unhealthy (in
>> way too many ways) diet. Only a small minority manage to develop serious
>> problems over the timeline of a couple of years. More importantly,
>> simulation studies are quite easy to carry out down here on Earth.
>> Its a classical case of way over-complicating and way over-engineering
>> something just because of "space". Why should the astronauts eat way more
>> healily up there than down here?
>Since there are many things we WON'T know about, it is not absurd to
>be very careful about the things we DO.
>As an extreme example, are we absolutely sure that several years out
>of Earth's magnetic field will not have a deleterious effect? Maybe
>eating really healthily might be a cushion against some of those
>unknowns.
There is another problem, which is much more serious than
it might appear. If we reduce the food supply to those
nutrients about which we know, we may end up missing
something important over moderately long periods.
For example, 60 years ago it was thought that selenium is
only toxic. It is now known to be essential. Another is
the huge variety of antioxidants, and at this time, it
seems that the "way to go" is to make sure that there is
a large variety. This may increase costs quite a bit;
colorful fruits are harder to convert to long-term stable
products without losing the nutrients, which are often the
compounds contributing to the color.
--
This address is for information only. I do not claim that these views
are those of the Statistics Department or of Purdue University.
Herman Rubin, Department of Statistics, Purdue University
hrubin@stat.purdue.edu Phone: (765)494-6054 FAX: (765)494-0558
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