Random Facts 15

Naming Soap
Soap gets its name from the mythological Mount Sapo. Fat and wood ash from animal sacrifices there washed into the Tiber river, creating a rudimentary cleaning agnet that aided women doing their washing.
Discover Magazine, September 2007, p. 80.

Death of President James Garfield
It is now believed that President James Garfield died not from the bullet fired by Charles Guiteau but because the medical team treated the president with manure-stained hands, causing a severe infection that killed him three months later.
Discover Magazine, September 2007, p. 80.

What's in Colgate Fluoride Whitening Toothpaste
Sodium Mono Fluorophoshate: a type of fluoride.
Hydrated Silica: same as the do not eat packets found in electronics, used as a gentle abrasive to scrub food and plaque stains.
Propylene Glycol: its cheaper cousin, diethylene glycol, is toxic and sometimes used as antifreeze.
Tetrasodium Pyrophosphate: coats enamel to prevent tartar from attaching.
Sodium Bicarbonate: baking sodabetter than hydrated sisilica at penetrating scratches in tooth enamel. It also neutralizes acidic saliva, and creates foamy bubbles.
Sodium Saccharin: an artificial sweetener.
Pentasodium Triphosphate: bonds to food particles preventing it from sticking or staining.
Sodium Lauryl Sulfate: is the detergent that makes the lather (similarly used in shampoo) with a desensitizing side effect to tastebuds that register sweetness (which is why orange juice tastes sour and bitter).
Carrageenan: is seaweed gum, the paste in toothpaste.
Sodium Hydroxide: is the chemical name for (a drain cleaner) lye, used to neutralize the pH of other ingredients. One of the main reasons the box warns, "If more than used for brushing is accidentally swallowed, get medical help..."
Calcium Peroxide: as you brush this breaks down into calcium chloride, a whitening agent, and a few oxygen radicals. Peroxide could burn the inside of your mouth, but generally there is too little in thoothpaste to cause any real damage.
Wired Magazine, October 2007, p. 50.

Whats in Snaw Some Beef & Cheese Dog Snacks
Wheat Flour: a processed starch that makes food easier to digest. But also makes treat more like a pretzel.
Corn Syrup/Sugar/Crystalline Fructose: all sugars. Crystalline Fructose is what's left after manufacturers distill the sugar, but the health risks are still the same. Archer Daniels Midland claims that its crystalline fructose contains no more than one milligram of arsenic per kilogram.
Glycerine: the moist sheen on the outside.
Beef Flavor: according to the FDA means that the amount present is "sufficient to be detected." The Association of Feed Control Officials defines meat in pet foods as "striate muscle which is skeletal or that which is found in the tongue, diaphram, heart, or esophagus, with or without overlying fat and portions of the skin, sinew, nerve and blood vessels.
Dried Cheese Product: a goulash of milk derivatives containing less than 51 percent actual cheese. Cheese product is generally rejected by nutritionists for use in school lnch programs.
Soy Protein Concentrate: mashed soybeans with fats and carbs removed, brings this product 4 percent protein, just a touch more than a twinke.
Natural Smoke Flavor: produced by burning wood chips and condensing the smoke into a liquid, adding the illusion of being cooked over a flame. A CDC report showed that 92 percent of commercial liquid smoke flavorings contain benzoapyrene, a substance known to cause stomach tumors in animals.
Onion Exract & Garlic Powder: A single serving amount won't be harmful, but dogs can develop a blood disorder from eatig onions and garlic.