Everything Is Bad For You
It seems they change their minds every year about what’s good or not good for us.
If you’re over 50, then just like you, as a kid I left the house after breakfast and made it back by dinner time. Bare feet, only one lot of sunscreen applied for the day (remember the blue liquid called ‘Blockout’?), no bike helmet, no money in pocket, no access to video games, no means of communication with home. We drank out of the creek if we were thirsty, and climbed higher in the trees than Bear Grylls. 9 hours of the outdoors and fresh air. But apparently, doing all that is very bad for you now.
Last week I mentioned coffee and wine in regard to not being able to tell the difference between some options. This time I’m mentioning them because, amongst many other things, it seems there’s a ‘new’ university study that comes out each year contradicting the previous one. We’re told in one study “It’s Ok to have a glass of wine a day … it’s actually quite good for you”. The same kind-of survey will come out for coffee, chocolate, running long distances, lifting weights, using your computer for long periods, spraying chemicals … I could go on. Then, we’ll get a contradicting research project by the next bunch of PhD students that tells us to keep away from wine, coffee, carbs, vitamins in bottles, red meat, sleeping longer than 7 hours, sleeping shorter than 7 hours, flu shots, aaaarrrrgggghhh! Make up your mind people. You’d think that the research was just being done to keep someone in a job.
There’s a song from American 80s singer Joe Jackson that has the catchline “♪ Everything gives you cancer, everything gives you cancer ♫”. Sometimes it feels that way. The anti-vaxers will tell you that there’s more harm than good to come from getting a jab to keep away the deadly viruses. Like eating an apple-a-day, the generation above me would religiously take their ‘Bex’ powders to ward off the nasties. Burning the sausages black used to be considered a level of acceptable cooking. A recent study to scare us shows the potential for Glyphosate to be a carcinogen – who knows.
They’ve been changing their minds about things for so long that I shouldn’t have been surprised at the latest ‘University Study’ telling of yet another thing that had been a staple, but that’s now no good for us, or at least no good for Man’s Best Friend. A lady came on one of those morning shows to tell us that giving your dog a bone is probably not the best thing for him or her. Bones. WHAT? Now, I’ve only owned two pooches over the past 25 years (they made it to age 12 and 13) so I don’t think I’ve done much wrong over two and a half decades of feeding them bones. Everybody knows not to give them cooked bones, but now they’re saying our doggo’s are going to break their teeth or choke from chewing on bones.
Did you watch the six episode TV series on Chernobyl yet? Scary, but awesome. Don’t quote me, but I’m sure they said it’d be about a gazillion years (you understand half-life of uranium, yes?) before it’s safe to go back and live there. Now they’re taking tours of the site … so long as you’re outta there within an hour it’ll be ‘safe’. I think I’ll stick to Disneyland or my secret spot up at Cape Tribulation to spend my hard-earned on a holiday tour.
I think I’m going to ignore every survey that comes out. What will they be telling us next … that Turkish Delight, Beer and Meat Pies are bad for us?