Saturday, April 26, 2014

Spread the Word

It seems with the rise of social media we have an inevitable rise in the propagation of Daily Mail style intelectuallism that at times amuses me and at other times irritates me. Why is it that people just believe everything they read as if the mere presence of it as written word confers factual status.
So anyway, someone I know re-shared this load of bollocks about margarine the other day and I just thought for once I'd write my own response, which please do not take as gospel, as it's mainly of the top of my head and so just as suspect as the original writers comments, but hopefully it is enough of a discourse to make a few people query what they read rather than just accept it.
So the original article went as follows and the blue text is my responses to the various statements made.
(NB - none of this in anyway is intended to suggest margarine is in any way healthy or indeed that butter isn't much much better for you, merely that that arguments used to try to make this point are….well…rubbish)
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Pass The Butter ... Please.

This is interesting . .. .
Margarine was originally manufactured to fatten turkeys. When it killed the turkeys, the people who had put all the money into the research wanted a payback so they put their heads together to figure out what to do with this product to get their money back.
Dog food is bad for Cat’s health but obviously fine when eaten by dogs. A koala can ONLY eat eucalyptus leaves and certainly would have some problems with butter, so just because the turkeys don’t like it has no bearing on it’s effect on humans
It was a white substance with no food appeal so they added the yellow colouring and sold it to people to use in place of butter. How do you like it? They have come out with some clever new flavourings....
Carrots were originally purple, Oranges originally green, look at 98% of every packaged food stuff and you will see colouring and flavouring in the ingredients list. Some food colourings are natural, some are artificial. Some are harmless, some are not so harmless. To mention margarine has been coloured is just to say it is in common with the vast majority of other food we eat.
DO YOU KNOW.. The difference between margarine and butter?
Read on to the end...gets very interesting!
Both have the same amount of calories.
Butter is slightly higher in saturated fats at 8 grams; compared to 5 grams for margarine.
Eating margarine can increase heart disease in women by 53% over eating the same amount of butter, according to a recent Harvard Medical Study.
As does Alcohol over water…. is anybody reading this thinking of switching from alcohol to water? I thought not! Plus if you are going to quote stats please quote the source – “a recent Harvard Medical Study” sounds convincing and official, but actually amounts to as much evidence as “They Say” J
Eating butter increases the absorption of many other nutrients in other foods.
Butter has many nutritional benefits where margarine has a few and only because they are added!
“Only because they were added” ?!? Are you seriously suggesting that a nutritional benefit is somehow a “better” one if it wasn’t “added”?
Butter tastes much better than margarine and it can enhance the flavours of other foods.
Just plain idiotic – taste is a completely subjective quality. Some people like the taste of celery…. I think it’s the food of Satan.
Butter has been around for centuries where margarine has been around for less than 100 years .
Paper has been around for centuries but the iPad or PC you typed this up on has been around for less than 50 years. Obviously you are as bad as Margarine for not using said paper instead.
And now, for Margarine…
  • ·     Very High in Trans fatty acids.
  • ·     Triples risk of coronary heart disease.
  • ·     Increases total cholesterol and LDL (this is the bad cholesterol) and lowers HDL cholesterol, (the good cholesterol)
  • ·     Increases the risk of cancers up to five times..
  • ·     Lowers quality of breast milk
  • ·     Decreases immune response.
  • ·     Decreases insulin response. 

Now the list of bad stuff about Margarine here might be convincing if
a) It was substantiated by the sources of the information (is it another Harvard Medical Study?)
b) There was any frame of reference for the comments – i.e. triple the risk of heart disease/x5 risk of cancers…. Compared to what? Just not eating it? Eating butter instead? What quantity are we talking about consuming?
And here's the most disturbing fact... HERE IS THE PART THAT IS VERY INTERESTING!
Margarine is but ONE MOLECULE away from being PLASTIC... and shares 27 ingredients with PAINT.
OK – this is where I virtually fell off my chair laughing! Margarine is one molecule away from being plastic. In the same vein Water is one molecule away from being Hydrogen Gas, one of which I will drink quite happily, the other, probably not good to fill my stomach on. Or Sodium Chloride (salt, to you and me) I will have a little in my food, indeed I need a little in my diet, but I think I’ll steer clear of eating any amount of Sodium on it’s own as it would kill me.
My point is one molecule can make an enormous difference. Your DNA shares 98% of the same “ingredients” as that of a potato, but perhaps you might be upset if I draw further comparison?
These facts alone were enough to have me avoiding margarine for life and anything else that is hydrogenated (this means hydrogen is added, changing the molecular structure of the substance).
“facts” – titter, guffaw, wheeze!
Open a tub of margarine and leave it open in your garage or shaded area. Within a couple of days you will notice a couple of things:
* no flies, not even those pesky fruit flies will go near it (that should tell you something)
It suggests to me that it doesn’t rot…. Ah sorry you’re going on to explain that anyway….So actually you want me to notice one thing stated twice rather than “a couple of things” J
* it does not rot or smell differently because it has no nutritional value ; nothing will grow on it. Even those teeny weeny microorganisms will not a find a home to grow.
This is pure speculation on the part of the writer with no explanation to the supposed link between rotting and smell with nutritional value. There has been rice found in the pyramids of Egypt from 5000 years ago that would still have been good to eat. It had not rotted, but are we therefore going to deduce that rice has no nutritional value?
Why? Because it is nearly plastic . Would you melt your Tupperware and spread that on your toast?
See above – it is NOT nearly plastic. It shares some molecules with plastic and….oh I can’t be bothered to explain it again!
Share This With Your Friends.....(If you want to butter them up')!
Chinese Proverb:
When someone shares something of value with you and you benefit from it, you have a moral obligation to share it with others.
Pass the BUTTER PLEASE"
GreedyGreen’s Proverb:
When someone shares something they’ve not bothered to think about or research with you and you cringe at it, you have a moral obligation to take the piss out of them and share that with others.

Pass the Beers and Twinkys please (check out the ingredients list on those puppies if margarine scares you! – lol)

Friday, April 11, 2014

Will you stop with the complaints!

Last night, yet again, on the telly was a programme all about the woes of parents that have to pay more for holidays in the school holidays! For goodness sake, do you not understand the laws of supply and demand? This is not holiday companies fleecing you, - its how economics work! More people want to go on holiday at those times so the prices are higher. In the same way, less brussel sprouts are available in summer, and the price of them goes up in this period. Should I start a petition with the government to freeze the price of brussel sprouts throughout the year because I don't want those profit grabbing farmers to fleece me when I feel like a sprout in July?
"But we can't afford to take out kids on holiday at those prices!" - NO - you can't - it's as simple as that. You can't afford it, so you can't have it. My family holidays as a kid were a trip to a farm owned by my aunt and uncle. I didn't get a holiday abroad until I could pay for it myself aged 18. We couldn't afford it before that, so we didn't go. For some reason parents seem to think it's a god given right to be able to go wherever they like with their whole family and the travel industry should make it cheap enough for them to do so - well wake up and smell the coffee! It's arguable that you have a right to feed, clothe, educate and house a family at an affordable cost, but a holiday IS A LUXURY! And luxuries you can have if and when you can afford them.