Thursday, 08 April 2010
What Next?
By Johna Ferguson
First it was coffee, it’s not good for your heart. Then it was milk that contained something to hurt your kidneys. Then it was honey due to the pesticides used on the trees that made it possibly stomach upsetting. And now peanut butter with salmonella.
Those are all the things I eat or drink every morning for breakfast here in Qingdao. Granted I have switched to decaf so that’s one thing. But it would be really hard for me not to put milk in my coffee for that is part of my protein regime since I don’t eat much meat. I’ve decided to just drink it anyway, so I have about two-thirds of a cup each morning in my two cups of decaf.
I always have toast with peanut butter and honey. We can’t easily get butter here and anyway it’s not good for your heart either. Most of the honey in the states came from China and obviously we are also eating it here, but I’m getting old, so maybe it won’t kill me, and if it does - well it probably won’t speed my death by that much.
I used to buy Skippy peanut butter here, but found that the Chinese brand is half the price, but who knows if it is safe. At least I don’t think it will have salmonella, but the papery thin skins around the peanuts have some poison in them and who knows if they are ground in with the peanuts.
If I choose instead to eat oatmeal, which I incidentally do not like, then I still must put milk on it and either sugar or honey. Oh such a quandary and one wonders what it will be next.
You’ve had tomato and lettuce recalls, meat ones also. Soon we probably will be told we can’t even eat grains for they are fertilized and it might leach into them somehow. And to top it all off, the drugs people take in the states are made mostly in India and China and are suspect for they often do not contain the full amount of what they are supposed to or they contain things they aren’t supposed to.
Do you have an answer to all these problems we have caused? We really have gotten ourselves into a corner with no way out. Maybe Obama or Gore can save us, but even they’re having difficult goings with their programs, so what’s to happen in the future?
Ho hum, is all I can say.
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Posted by Ronni Bennett at 02:30 AM | Permalink | Email this post
Comments
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If you pay attention to all of the warnings it can make you nuts. I just do what I have always done and hope for the best. If it hasn't killed me so far, I figure it's not going to do so in the future. And if it does, I will at least die happy eating the things I like.
Posted by: Darlene | Thursday, 08 April 2010 at 07:58 AM
Ho Hum is probably the best answer. Remember when chocolate was our guilty pleasure? I ALWAYS said it was medicine--now the world agrees with me (but dark only), probably tomorrow it will be a different story. I always said eggs were good for you--it's not the cholesterol you eat, it's fat that turns to cholesterol--my son learned that in biology 25 years ago. Now eggs are okay for most people! Yikes! (I would consider natural peanut butter, tho,' if you can get it) Signed, the health nut whose rules keeps changing!
Posted by: Lyn Burnstine | Thursday, 08 April 2010 at 08:32 AM
Johna - Alas!
But, we've all made it this far so maybe we're doing something right.
Just to add to your list of things to worry about - Caffeinated coffee contains 5 percent caffeine, and decaf contains 3 percent caffeine. So why bother?!
Anyway, this was a funny piece. Just what I needed to perk me up on a cool, windy Thursday. Thanks - Sandy
Posted by: Sandy | Thursday, 08 April 2010 at 08:51 AM
Insightful story. We are all in this predicament. I heard an interview with a scientist on NPR that our vitamins and medicines are in our sweat so that just taking showers is bad for our water supply. What next indeed!
Posted by: Judy Watten | Thursday, 08 April 2010 at 09:34 AM
OMG, I missed that one!
Posted by: Lyn Burnstine | Thursday, 08 April 2010 at 08:14 PM