Live long enough and you'll have a chance to witness just about any food fad: one year a bombshell is dropped on a slow news day: fad-ogen correlates with cancer! The food conglomerates begin pumping out (higher priced) "new and improved" versions of the most boring foods, boasting about how low in fadogens they are. The mayor of a big city on the coast bans fadogen from school cafeterias and vending machines. Rumors fly that that the mayor might be appointed Secretary of Education or Surgeon General in the new Democratic administration. But soon fadogen becomes yesterday's news.
Just then, a new blockbuster book comes out revealing that fadogen is actually healthy. Not only that, but fadogen is the only thing that one should eat. The author makes the circuit of TV talk shows, gives lectures for a six digit fee, and becomes quite the celebrity. Rumors fly that the author (a marketing major in college) might be in the running for the next Nobel prize in medicine.
And so it goes. Can the basic principles and facts of human nutrition be so unknown at this point in history? Why are people so willing to believe that some momentous new discovery has just been made? You'd think that all the emotion and controversy about the latest diet craze would be proof enough that we're not talking about science at all.
I wish people would stop pretending that "health" issues are really their concern with food fads. More likely, vanity is. With women that is almost always the case, and in a unisex culture like ours the notion eventually trickles down to men. With the modern divorce culture many people spend much of their adult lives worrying about their market value in the mating-and-dating rat race.
June is a hot and dry month in the American Southwest. When the local thermometer started pushing triple digits, I found the idea of cooking on a hot stove to be repulsive. Of course there are several places within walking distance where I could buy ready-to-eat food, but walking in the heat seemed repulsive. The mere act of chewing seemed a bother. It sufficed to drink water and munch on cucumbers or carrots, dipped in dijon mustard. Lo and behold, I started losing weight, almost effortlessly.
But how do you turn this momentous food discovery into a quick buck?
Just then, a new blockbuster book comes out revealing that fadogen is actually healthy. Not only that, but fadogen is the only thing that one should eat. The author makes the circuit of TV talk shows, gives lectures for a six digit fee, and becomes quite the celebrity. Rumors fly that the author (a marketing major in college) might be in the running for the next Nobel prize in medicine.
And so it goes. Can the basic principles and facts of human nutrition be so unknown at this point in history? Why are people so willing to believe that some momentous new discovery has just been made? You'd think that all the emotion and controversy about the latest diet craze would be proof enough that we're not talking about science at all.
I wish people would stop pretending that "health" issues are really their concern with food fads. More likely, vanity is. With women that is almost always the case, and in a unisex culture like ours the notion eventually trickles down to men. With the modern divorce culture many people spend much of their adult lives worrying about their market value in the mating-and-dating rat race.
June is a hot and dry month in the American Southwest. When the local thermometer started pushing triple digits, I found the idea of cooking on a hot stove to be repulsive. Of course there are several places within walking distance where I could buy ready-to-eat food, but walking in the heat seemed repulsive. The mere act of chewing seemed a bother. It sufficed to drink water and munch on cucumbers or carrots, dipped in dijon mustard. Lo and behold, I started losing weight, almost effortlessly.
But how do you turn this momentous food discovery into a quick buck?
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