Category: Society

A Few Myths About Food

food myths

People believe all kinds of stupid crap, stuff that doesn’t really make any sense but somehow gets passed around as absolute truth.  Mostly these things are harmless, like poinsettias are poison or bananas grow on trees, but sometimes they get a lot more traction than that and start causing trouble.  For example, here are a few “facts” that don’t have a lick of evidence to support them, but people believe they are the key to a healthy life.

You should drink 8 glasses of water every day.  There is absolutely no evidence to support this myth.  Think about it!  Why eight?  How big are the glasses?  Can you drink them all in the morning and take the rest of the day off?  What happens if you drink nine?  Do you OD and start swimming upstream?

Smoothies are healthy.  Not necessarily.  If you make your own, you’ve got a fighting chance (depending on how much chocolate sauce you use) but if you buy them commercially, you’re getting sugar – lots of sugar.  That’s why they taste so good.

Salt is bad for you.  Wrong!  Banishing salt from your diet can hurt you just as much as eating too much.  Here’s the deal: use your head!  There’s no need to be a sodium evangelist, but you shouldn’t flash the salt shaker around like maracas, either.

Low-Fat is a healthy alternative.  If you eat like Henry VIII, maybe, but regular people need a certain amount of fat in their diet.  The other thing to remember is stuff that’s labelled Low-Fat is only low-fat by comparison.  Compared to what, you ask?  Good question!

You need to walk 10,000 steps a day.  Once again, there is no evidence to support this.  However, unlike most modern myths, this one actually has an origin.  One of the slogans to promote fitness before the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo was Manpo-kei which, literally translated, means 10,000 steps.  Somehow, it got morphed into a fitness fact.

Energy drinks are healthy.  Not even close.  Read the label/do the math. They’re loaded with enough sugar to qualify them as junk food.  Plus, there have to be some serious chemicals in there to turn the liquid you’re drinking bright blue, or neon green.

And finally:

Organic food is chemical free.  No it isn’t.  First of all, on our planet, the wind blows, and very few organic farms are hermetically sealed.  Secondly, there are all kinds of chemicals that are allowed in “certified organic” food; it’s just that nobody mentions them.  And finally, “organic” is a term that has a slippery definition, so slapping it on a label doesn’t mean much.

Tune In To The Truth

tune in

We all think we know ourselves pretty well, and for the most part, that’s true.  However, since we can only look at ourselves from the inside, sometimes we don’t see the whole picture.  This is when the stylized version of our own private reality doesn’t quite match what the rest of the world sees.  Luckily, people around us are willing to set the record straight — and frequently do.  Here are a few example of how the world can tune us in to the truth.

You know you’re fat when people ask if you’ve lost weight. (Nobody ever says that to a skinny person.)

You know you’re a computer geek when the hot girl in accounting (who has never spoken to you before) leans over your desk and casually says, “Do you know anything about email?”

You know you’re old when people start saying, “Age is only a number.”

You know you’re not actually a valued customer when the auto-voice on the telephone says, “Your call is important to us.”

You know you’re rich when the car dealer doesn’t say, “So, how much were you thinking of spending?”  But you know you’re poor when the kid behind the counter at McDonald’s does.

You know you’re screwed when your lawyer says, “I’m a Sagittarius with Virgo rising.  What’s your sign?”

You know you wasted your time at university when the most common question at work is “Do I get fries with that?”

You know you’re beautiful when nobody talks about your personality.

You know you’re tall when strangers ask you about basketball.

You know sex is basically over when somebody says, “Ewww!”

You know you’re a pain in the ass when your family, friends, co-workers and neighbours all say, “Yes, I know you’re a vegan.”

You know the first date isn’t going well when the person you’re with asks for the server’s phone number – and gets it.

You know your explanation wasn’t good enough when the policeman says, “I’m going to need you to step out of the vehicle, ma’am.”

You know you’ve just asked a stupid question when somebody says, “There’s no such thing as a stupid question.”

And finally:

You know your life is about to change when the stranger at your door is carrying a suitcase and says, “Hi, my name is Brenda Sue.  You met me at a party 8 to 10 weeks ago?”

The Moon

moon

Fifty years ago tomorrow, a guy from Ohio stepped onto the Moon, and suddenly Earthlings became extra-terrestrials.  It was a spectacular accomplishment.  Everybody on this planet — from Brooklyn to Borneo — knew about it, and US president Richard Nixon got so carried away he called it, “the most significant event since creation” (fire and the wheel notwithstanding.)  But our species going to the moon was more than just going to the moon.  It was a blatant demonstration that humans can defy the natural laws of the universe (notably, gravity) and do whatever the hell we want.  We had the confidence, the ability and the audacity to hurl ourselves off this little blue marble, visit another celestial body and come back to tell the tale.  In your face, Mother Nature!

Neil Armstrong’s “One small step for man …” was the culmination of The Big Idea, an inherent human trait that has dominated our existence since long before Pharaoh Cheops decided he wanted to be immortal and asked his scientists, mathematicians and engineers to make it so.  Our reach has always exceeded our grasp — until we grasp.  Then we begin the whole process over again.  For example, the wheel is a magnificent tool, but inventing the cam which converts circular motion into vertical power was a singular act of genius.  Necessity may be the mother of invention, but invention itself is its own philandering father, propagating numerous offspring to find a new necessity and begin the process all over again.  Human history is a litany of necessity and invention — each progressively more complex and imaginative than the last.

The Lunar landing itself didn’t do much to change the lives of anybody, really.  (The slingshot of Space Race technology wouldn’t hit our society for a generation.)  The next day, most people simply went about their ordinary earthly business.  But we were all a little bolder, a little more self-assured, a little more hopeful.  After all, we’d just put a man on the moon: how hard could the rest of our problems be?  But that’s the nature of the Big Idea.  Its very soul is the notion that, when we concentrate our ideas and abilities, we can make the impossible ordinary.  That, once inspired, humans are capable of thinking beyond themselves.  And that inspiration is, by nature, selfless, righteous, and beneficial.  The Big Idea assumes the greater good.

Neil Armstrong didn’t just decide to go to the moon.  He got there because, in the early 60s, there was a Big Idea, and in 1962, President Kennedy went to Rice University and asked Americans to reach for the stars.

“We choose to go to the moon,” he said. “We choose to go to the moon in this decade …, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone …”

Seven years later, at Moon Base One, somewhere in the Sea of Tranquility, an army of NASA scientists, mathematicians and engineers made it so.

These days, it’s fashionable to embellish our human flaws and limitations, to scroll through our problems, upload our complaints and download our responsibilities.  We are the grandchildren of the Lunar Generation, connected by our machines, concerned and conceited with ourselves and comfortable with our own righteousness.  But history shows us that one day – someday – there will be a new Big Idea and the human adventure will begin again.