| SOME FOOD MYTHS YOU LEARNED IN SCHOOL. The food processing industry has a lot of clout in deciding what is taught in public schools about food and nutrition. They also have a lot of clout in deciding what foods should be in school lunches. Here are some things you probably learned in school about food but that aren’t true. THE FOOD PYRAMID. The Department of Agriculture created the food pyramid in the 1970s. You can find posters with the food pyramid on it in school classrooms all over the U.S. These posters are supplied to schools free by the Department of Agriculture. But – the job of the Department of Agriculture isn’t promoting public health, but promoting farmers and the food industry. Lobbyists working for the food processing and dairy industries had a lot of influence in the construction of this pyramid, and their influence is obvious. The most profitable sector of the food industry is making processed carbohydrates: breakfast cereals, breads, cookies, cakes, pasta, etc. Look at how heavily weighted this chart is in favor of carbohydrates. Imagine – a child eating 11 servings of carbs every day. Milk. Another criticism of the food pyramid is that it was designed for white Europeans. Look at the dairy section of the food pyramid. The food pyramid teaches kids that they need to consume 2 to 3 servings of milk or other dairy products every day for good health; however, over 75% of native Americans, black Americans, and Chinese Americans are lactose intolerant. There is no accounting for that in the pyramid. You can find this same food pyramid on the walls of schools where most of the students are black as well as schools where most of the students are white, even though 70% to 80% of black kids can’t digest dairy products. This is called disparate impact. It’s unintentional discrimination, which is very common in our society. In other words, the people at the Department of Agriculture who constructed the food pyramid weren’t trying to make black kids sick when they published it. They just didn’t think about it. IS BREAKFAST THE MOST IMPORTANT MEAL OF THE DAY? No. No one meal is more important than another. The idea that breakfast is more important than other meals can be traced back to the late 19th Century when Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, a physician and nutritionist, said so. This idea was picked up by his brother, Will Kellogg, who found the idea a good marketing tool. Beginning in the 1930s, Kellogg radio ads claimed that “Nutrition experts say that breakfast is the most important meal of the day.” The company continued making this claim for decades in its advertising. Although this started off as just an advertising slogan, it is now taught everywhere as fact. WILL CAFFEINE STUNT A CHILD’S GROWTH? No. If you are short, it isn’t because your parents let you drink Frappuccinos at Starbucks. Kellogg’s arch-rival was C.W. Post. He also created advertising slogans that became accepted as fact. In 1895, Post invented Postum, a caffeine-free alternative beverage to coffee. Postum is still made. It is made from roasted grain and molasses. It has the color of coffee, but it doesn’t taste anything like coffee. I don’t know anyone who likes it. In order to get parents to make their kids drink Postum instead of coffee, Post claimed, without evidence, that caffeine stunts a child’s growth. Postum ads were designed to make parents feel guilty for letting their kids drink coffee. The Postum ad below shows a sickly child in a classroom and says “this boy never had a fair chance” because his parents let him drink coffee. The ad says that coffee “robs children of their rosy cheeks and sparkling eyes” and most importantly “hampers proper development and growth.” This is scientific nonsense, but a lot of people now believe it’s true. Personally, I think giving caffeinated beverages to young children is a bad idea, but a lot of parents let their kids drink Coca Cola with their meals, even though they won’tlet them eat Hershey bars They say it’s because of the caffeine. Recently, a woman wouldn’t let her daughter eat one of my chocolate covered mocha Oreos because of the coffee in the mocha filling. However, there is relatively little caffeine in chocolate compared to caffeinated beverages like coffee or Coke. A small cup of coffee at McDonalds contains 100 mg of caffeine. A medium size Coke contains 60mg. A Hershey bar contains 9mg. A child would have to eat a lot of Hershey bars to get a caffeine buzz. |
| WORST APPLICANT EVER. IT’S IN THE STARS. Berkeley used to be a cheap place to live. Back in the 1970s, you could rent a 1-bedroom apartment in central Berkeley for $100 a month. I knew some people who were paying less than that. Even adjusted for inflation, rent in Berkeley was cheap, especially compared to other cities near San Francisco. That is why the ‘hippies’ came to Berkeley in the 1960s and 70s. In every generation, counterculture people need to find places to live that have cheap housing. However, people looking for cheap housing don’t come to Berkeley anymore. Rental housing here has become tooexpensive. One bedroom apartments in the new buildings in my neighborhood are $3,000 to $4,000 a month. They can be even more expensive closer to campus. A lot of strange people came to Berkeley in the 1960s and 70s from the East Coast, attracted by the culture, climate, and cheap housing. I have saved some of the rental applications I got back then. Below is an excerpt from a tenant resume I got in the late 1970s. I don’t get applications from people like this anymore. “What I’m Looking For. Ideally, I would like to find a landlord who is either a Gemini like myself or a Sagittarius. Sagittarius is 180 degrees from Gemini, so we would get along very well. I would consider renting an apartment from a Taurus or a Cancer, but obviously they would not be my first choice. The owner of the building where I am living now is a Virgo, and I’m a Gemini. Our signs are at a 90-degree angle, so we don’t get along. I can’t rent an apartment from a Virgo or Pisces. Their signs are at right angles to mine, so their Sun is in a Sign which is square to mine. Landlords born very close to 91 days apart will have their Sun square the other, which would be a real challenge for me! Moon square Sun is also difficult, but I am willing to risk that. For example, a Leo would irritate me at times, but with patience, we could deal with each other.” At the bottom of this resume, in the ‘References’ section, it says: “Madam Lastardo is my astrologer. She will have to do a chart on my new landlord before I can sign a lease.”Several days later, I received an astrological questionnaire in the mail from Madam Lastrado, but I did not fill it out or return it. I know nothing about astrology, but I know 2 people who know a lot about this subject, and both of them told me that this woman knew what she was talking about. It’s not just gibberish. However, I rented the apartment to someone else. P.S. – A lawyer told me that it is legal for a landlord to refuse to rent an apartment to someone because of an applicant’s astrological sign, although he added that he wouldn’t recommend it. Apparently, discrimination laws do not cover ‘astrological incompatibility’ – at least not yet! |