Ethnic differences in grains consumption and their contribution to intake of B-vitamins: results of the Multiethnic Cohort Study

Background: Research indicates that a diet rich in whole grains may reduce the risk of prevalent chronic diseases, including cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and some cancers, and that risk for these diseases varies by ethnicity. The objective of the current study was to identify major dietary sources of grains and describe their contribution to B vitamins in five ethnic groups. Methods. A cross-sectional mail survey was used to collect data from participants in the Multiethnic Cohort Study in Hawaii and Los Angeles County, United States, from 1993 to 1996. Dietary intake data collected using a quantitative food frequency questionnaire was available for 186,916 participants representing five ethnic groups (African American, Latino, Japanese American, Native Hawaiian and Caucasian) aged 45-75 years. The top sources of grain foods were determined, and their contribution to thiamin, riboflavin, niacin, vitamin B6, and folic acid intakes were analyzed. Results: The top source of whole grains was whole wheat/rye bread for all ethnic-sex groups, followed by popcorn and cooked cereals, except for Native Hawaiian men and Japanese Americans, for whom brown/wild rice was the second top source; major contributors of refined grains were white rice and white bread, except for Latinos. Refined grain foods contributed more to grain consumption (27.1-55.6%) than whole grain foods (7.4-30.8%) among all ethnic-sex groups, except African American women. Grain foods made an important contribution to the intakes of thiamin (30.2-45.9%), riboflavin (23.1-29.2%), niacin (27.1-35.8%), vitamin B6 (22.9-27.5%), and folic acid (23.3-27.7%). Conclusions: This is the first study to document consumption of different grain sources and their contribution to B vitamins in five ethnic groups in the U.S. Findings can be used to assess unhealthful food choices, to guide dietary recommendations, and to help reduce risk of chronic diseases in these populations.

Frederick Douglass and Ireland, 1845: The "Vertiginous Twist[s]" of an Irish Encounter

Frederick Douglas was a reader of and writer on the nineteenth-century political and social texts and contexts of oppression, which he experienced at home and witnesed while in Ireland and Britain, 1845-47. This thesis is unique in its identification of several surprising lacunae in the research and critical evaluation of Frederick Douglass’ activities of reading and writing and the texts and contexts that supported these activities. This thesis takes Douglass’ relationship with Ireland and the Irish as its starting point, and offers several moments in the transnational space engendered by Douglass’ readerly and writerly experience of the transatlantic axes of Ireland, Britain and America. This thesis draws upon archival research to recover information regarding Douglass’ trip and subjects his reading and writing on Ireland and the Irish to the critical rigours of narratolgical, cultural and discourse analysis. One lacuna is Douglass’ favourite and neglected school primer, the Columbian Orator, which Douglass signified upon across his autobiographical project. The speech by the Irish patriot and exile, Arthur O’Connor, included in the Orator, is crucial to Douglass’ understanding and expression of justice and equality. Genette’s narratological analysis gives theoretical traction to the ways in which, in his autobiographical representations of his British trip, Douglass recalibrates his autobiographies to reflect his changing perspectives on his life and work. Contrary to popular assumptions, Douglass did, in two letters to Garrison address and comment on Irish poverty. This thesis interrogates the strategic anglophilia of these letters. While the World’s Temperance Convention (WTC) refused to discuss African- American slavery, analysis of Douglass’ speech in Covent Garden and of the paratextual apparatus of the published proceedings of the WTC demonstrates the impossibility of separating these closely interrelated reform causes. When a newly discovered poem from Waterford that admonished the city for its disregard for Douglass’ message is juxtaposed with an uncomfortable moment in Cork, we understand that Douglass became a pawn to bolster sectarian rivalries between nationalist and establishment factions. Though Douglass believed imperial politics was the best vehicle for modernity, he recognised that it had failed Ireland: consequently, in Thoughts and Recollections of a Trip to Ireland (1886), he advocates for Home Rule for Ireland.