Fear Doesn’t Go Down Well at Breakfast Table

Re “Are We Ready to Fret About Our Fries?” April 6: Oh come on now, don’t tell me the Cheerios I eat every morning (the “healthy” brand from Whole Foods) are now a potential cancer source! I can understand when the Food and Drug Administration tells us that cooking French fries at high temperatures may not be good for us. We know that we should stay away from potato chips and greasy foods. But now I can’t even enjoy a bowl of Raisin Bran or Cheerios or Wheatena (on a cool winter’s morning)? I have to be guilty for having a toasted bagel and cream cheese (besides the carbs and cholesterol they contain ... at least they weren’t cancer-causing)? Oh, I forgot, I can’t toast the bread because “the very act of heating many foods seems to unleash acrylamide.”

Please do me a favor. I don’t want to see cancer warnings on my morning box of cereal. Just let me enjoy my cereal, OK?

Marilyn Black Kaplan

Santa Monica

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While eating my third tuna salad sandwich in seven days, I contemplate my odds of developing dementia from mercury poisoning compared to being hurt by a terrorist.

The terrorist threat is certainly serious and must be dealt with, but so is the danger to our health from the reckless environmental policies of the Republican administration.

The Republicans, from the president down to state politicians, have such awful records on the environment that it is not even considered an issue in the debates leading to the November elections.

My contemplation leads me to the conclusion that I have far greater odds of being injured by the adverse effects of Republican environmental policies than from terrorists. Oh well, maybe in a state of dementia I won’t care what is going on.

Burton L. Elliott

Thousand Oaks