Mmmmm…. Kraft Anti-Intestinal Worm Mac & Cheese

There’s nothing like a little Anti-Intestinal Worm Mac & Cheese for lunch.

Environmental Graffiti has a story about a partnership between Kraft Food and pesticide maker TyraTech to produce a food that will kill intestinal worms.

Kraft has not said what type of food is being created, but that it will aim to sell the food in rural areas of Asia, Africa, and South America. All of these locations have significant problems with intestinal worms, particularly in children. Worms can seriously affect the health of children, making them lethargic and anemic.

The food, whatever it may be, will contain deworming chemicals from TyraTech, who currently make safe pesticides from plant oils. Dr. R. Douglas Armstrong, CEO of TyraTech, said the anti-worming oils work by attaching to olfactory and nervous system receptors found only in invertebrates. This overstimulates the receptors, which produce a wave of impulses in the nervous system that repels or kills the worms. He likened it to ringing a doorbell so often it causes a heart attack out of annoyance.

Humans, and other vertebrates, do not have the receptors, so the oil does no harm to them. The oil has already been shown to work in mice. Several mice were infected with dwarf tapeworms, but after less than a week of treatment the worms were gone. No tests have yet been performed on humans.

Head over and read the whole story. It’s stomach churningly good.

Link [Environmental Graffiti] & [New York Times]