Your reading list

THE FRINGE

Reading Time: < 1 minute

Published: May 8, 1997

Scare-mongering

Statistics Canada says that you and I eat an average of 1.1 dozen eggs a month, or 14 dozen a year.This is a decline from the 19 dozen in 1975 when we did not worry so much about cholesterol and heart disease.

Actually, I think a lot of ailments are caused by people worrying about the food they eat. They hear that over-indulging in eggs isn’t good for you and so they cut them out entirely, just to be safe. This means that they lose out on a nutritious food, all on account of scare-mongering.

Read Also

An aerial photo highlighting the checkerboard-like nature of farmland when seen from high above.

Higher farmland taxes for investors could solve two problems

The highest education and health care land tax would be for landlords, including investment companies, with no family ties to the land.

Scientists who develop a small bit of knowledge about a subject are far too free in advancing hypotheses based on what they have found.

They scare the liver out of us by suggesting if you eat pickled parsnips you might come down with some loathsome disease.

Every time I hear a warning such as that, I’m tempted to add: “Since it’s might rather than will, why should I pass up on a gustatory treat?”

In the past five years we have been warned about eggs, milk, butter, cream, peanuts, chocolate, pork, beef, sugar, nanaimo bars and cheesecake.

Some of these warnings may have validity with small groupings of people. I know peanuts can do devastating things to people whose systems react to them but most of us regard them as a treat. Beans and cucumbers launch some people into low orbit, but this is no reason for a general proscription.

I plan to continue eating eggs, fried, poached, coddled, devilled, Benedict, hard boiled, scrambled, pickled and in all those dandy casserole dishes. But not all on the same day.

A dozen a month sounds about right.

explore

Stories from our other publications