I read the newspaper every day. Its a habit. Like smoking. Feels nice at the time but there’s no benefit in it long term. I read it ‘in paper’ format. Because computers cause cancer. Blindness. Brain damage. Sterility. Heart failure. The radiation from your screen can turn you into a zombie (that bit’s true), into a Mormon. Into an Ork. 

And there’s the problem. People are always speculating on health issues based on studies, on statistics and on often rather spurious science. Mainly because someone has to pay for the ‘study’ and if you manufacture statins you’re going to proclaim them as the best thing ever for keeping the population alive and in good health. So I treat all such proclamations with a pinch of salt. But not too much salt or my arteries might harden. 

So when they tell you to eat seaweed three times a day, I find seventeen logical rebuttals. Because I don’t want to eat seaweed ever. When ‘jogging’ becomes essential for bodily fitness, I find a flaw in the maths. Even though I’m not very good at maths. 

But sometimes, just sometimes, they come up with ‘health issues’ which converge with my lifestyle. In which cases, the maths is perfect, the science unquestionable and why have ‘they’ only just realised this? Idiots. I’ve been bathing in Single Malt whisky for years now. Because rather than learning new things, adopting new food, exercise, patterns, what we really want is validation that what we already do is brilliant. 

On Sunday there was ‘the benefits of apples’. Yeah, that’s news. Keeping doctors away, etc. But now its ‘PROVEN’. The… stuff in apples is good for everything and now they reckon two a day is better. Overkill. One’s enough. 

And then today was the jackpot. They reckon if you eat chilli three or four times a week you are a whopping 40% less likely to get cardiac disease and… 60% less likely to have a stroke. (Just a quick note, a caveat: STATISTICS CAN DAMAGE YOUR HEALTH because there’s still 60% of people eating chilli getting heart disease, and 40% getting strokes or they’d call chilli ‘the cure’.) It also depends what you put your chilli on. Cos most people don’t just eat them on their own. And if you have four donner kebabs a week just for the chilli, you’re going to die very young. Similarly the curries (a rich source of chillies) eaten in take-aways and most restaurants are loaded with fat, salt and sugar. So its like playing a game of tennis for health reasons but at every end change, smoking 3 Marlboro reds and eating a tub of ice cream. You have to be careful. Like me. I have chillies on everything. Mel’s over the upset of ‘but I spent hours flavouring that!’ after watching me drown it in Harisa, Sehug, Thai chili sauce, Mexican hot sauce, any possible source of a chilli hit. 
So that’s it then. We’re sorted. Eat chilli; live forever. Done deal. 

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx