I’ve discovered the most dangerous thing to health, well-being, and happiness. That “thing” is following the latest advice, study, or suggestions for being healthier or happier. Looking back at the past thirty years, one thing is clearly true—if you followed most of the recommendations, you were, in fact, doing yourself more harm than good.
Here’s the history of BS stuff we believed until we didn’t . . . And some things we might want to question more deeply.
Don’t eat butter. It’s filled with dangerous fat that will give you a heart attack. Instead, eat margarine which is an excellent low-fat substitute made from healthy plastic.
Now fast forward thirty years and discover that butter is so good for your health people are using it in their coffee.
Don’t eat fat. Fat makes you fat so eat low-fat foods. Low-fat foods contain more of that healthy, natural, pure sugar. Sugar who’s only danger is to your teeth.
Except now we know sugar is the enemy and healthy fat is good and necessary for your body. Who would have thought the sugar industry would have misled us?
Floss every day. Speaking of teeth, flossing is the most effective method for ensuring good dental health. Oh, wait, that was a study conducted by the dental floss sellers that involved twenty-five participants over two weeks of use.
But don’t stop flossing because it can reduce Gingivitis which now is believed to the be at the root of Alzheimer’s. Just make sure you use the right floss because now we know certain brands carry dangerous toxins that can kill you.
Eat a diet low in cholesterol. Everyone knows that high cholesterol in your body causes blockages that ultimately leads to heart attacks. So, avoid egg yolks at all costs. Sure, it’s the perfect protein, but they’ll kill you.
Except they won’t. It was recently discovered that food’s cholesterol doesn’t translate to a build up in artery walls.
Alcohol is perfectly safe and deadly. In the past two years, we’ve learned that some alcohol every day is excellent for your health and also that any amount of alcohol has adverse effects on your health.
Active Healthy People Live Longer. That makes perfect sense. Get some exercise, eat “right,” and you’ll live a much longer life.
Unless you believe the recent study that demonstrated the healthy, longest living people are those who are a little overweight, drink coffee and consume booze in moderation.
Avoid MSG. MSG in Chinese style food has all kinds of ill effects and should be avoided. It can raise blood pressure, destroy brain cells in babies, and cause headaches.
Except MSG is naturally occurring in many foods like tomatoes and used as a flavor enhancer. But most importantly, it was discovered as “safe” by the FDA back in 1990.
Yes, you may be allergic to it but to really know that it’s not in your head you need to be tested . . . By a doctor. Same goes for gluten by the way.
Don’t Eat Red Meat. Everyone knows that red meat is bad for you. Don’t let the fact that we’ve been consuming it for ten thousand years fool you. If you stopped eating it, you would live forever.
Of course, none of that is true, and red meat doesn’t have a negative impact on your health. It helps provide the essential proteins and amino acids necessary for muscle and body function.
So why do nutritions still hate red meat? Because they believe cattle raising is detrimental to the environment and facilitates climate change.
Eat three or six balanced meals a day. It’s been long-understood that three healthy meals a day optimized health. Just follow those four food squares . . . No, wait . . . The food pyramid . . . No wait, we’re back to squares.
Anyway, just east three “Square” meals a day . . . Although six small meals might be better . . . Nope, actually, you want to consume all your calories in four hours because intermittent fasting has a lot of health benefits . . .
Screw it, just go to McDonald’s!
Smoking causes cancer. Cigarettes are a guaranteed early grave. Everyone knows the Tobacco Industry lied, manipulated nicotine levels, and worked closely with Satan to ensure its customer base died of cancer. No one would advocate for cigarette smoking.
But, not all cigarette smokers get any form of cancer. And a large portion of those who get lung cancer never smoked at all. What we’re starting to understand is that there may just be a genetic component to cancer. You either have the potential to “get it,” or you don’t.
Seatbelts Save Lives: Seems logical. If you look it up, you’ll see the statistics that claim wearing seatbelts save thousands of lives every year. And it indeed is better to be safe than sorry. No one wants to take a chance of surviving ejection from their motor vehicle.
But look a little closer, and you start to discover that “thousands” aren’t really a lot in the scope of things. In 1975 (when kids rode standing in the car’s front seat), there were a reported 39 thousand car crashes that resulted in 44 thousand deaths. In 2017 there were 34 thousand car crashes that resulted in 37 thousand fatalities.
So, in fact, thousands of lives were saved. But the percentage is pretty small. There were fewer crashes and fewer deaths. Of course, car safety standards have also significantly risen. So do seat belts save lives or is better airbags and other safety items? Who knows but indeed it may have little to do with seatbelts.
I wouldn’t advocate for taking unnecessary risks with your health or well-being. And maybe there isn’t any harm in a “better safe than sorry” approach.
Certainly, however, before we jump on the next trend, study, or findings we might want to do our own research of the facts, understand the potential motives behind the study (like who’s paying for it), and maybe just listen to my grandmother’s sage advice – All things in moderation.
She, who by the way, lived to 105 and loved sugar and long walks.
Writers After Dark 