I have before me a monthly magazine that shall remain nameless. Each issue is devoted to making every reader (and if the magazine subscription gurus play their cards right, that includes you and me) feel really bad about the food he or she chooses to put in his or her mouth.
Strange way to run a railroad.
More important, however, is the fact that I have caught the magazine telling an outright lie.
It says right here in black and white that the risk of dying is lowest in people who eat the least red meat (the equivalent of 1-1/2 Quarter Pounders* a week) or processed meat (the equivalent of 1 hot dog** every week or two.)
That’s the most ridiculous thing I ever
This is not to say that what we eat doesn’t affect our health or our clothing size or even our longevity, but the risk of dying is not lowest in people who eat the least red meat (the equivalent of 1-1/2 Quarter Pounders a week) or processed meat (the equivalent of 1 hot dog every week or two).
I beg to differ. Friends, the risk of dying is exactly the same in each and every person on the face of the earth, and it has very little -- okay, nothing -- to do with what anyone chooses to eat.
Don’t believe me? Stay with me for a few more sentences.
The last time I checked, the mortality rate was exactly the same as it has always been. The mortality rate, dear reader, for the entire human race is one death per person. If my math is correct, that works out to 100 per cent.
So if you are a person (and if you are reading this, I fervently hope you are), face it, you are going to die one day, unless your car has a bumper sticker that includes the word “Rapture” and even then the chances are still good. Perhaps not today and perhaps not tomorrow, but eventually. The when part remains uncertain and can definitely be delayed through good lifestyle choices, but the whether part, I regret to inform you, is not in question.
Not now. Not ever.
This has been another public service announcement from Rhymeswithplague Enterprises, Inc.
* If you live where McDonald’s have never erected their golden arches, Quarter Pounders are hamburgers. And if you don’t, they still are.
** Next they’ll be telling us that 1 hot dog = 3.14159 slices of bologna, but who really cares?
