Tuesday, August 24, 2021

IMPERFECTLY FRANK

MURDERERS!
 A month ago, I wrote about -- or, rather, made mighty fun of -- a recent study claiming that coffee caused Alzheimer's, which contradicted a previous study that stated the opposite. Unless it was decaf. I just re-read it and I still don't understand it.

Well, it appears that it's time for another so-called study that nobody can prove. The latest one swears by golly that one hot dog takes 35 minutes off your life. That is, if you eat it. Otherwise, there's no problem.

Lemmings in Coney Island line up to their death.
There's no explanation as to how they came up with such an exact number. Oh wait, there is. It's because the study was done at the University of Michigan School of Public Health, Department of Environmental Health Sciences. Any place with such a high-falutin'-look-how-healthy-we-are name isn't likely to boast of a barbecue pit on the front lawn.

 

 

That is, unless they ordered the fried clam roll, which
likely took another 20 minutes off their life. But it's
worth it.
I'm not sure how many hot dogs I've consumed in my lifetime, but I can tell you this:where I grew up (Newport, RI), everybody had an outdoor barbecue grill that worked overtime all summer. And if they got tired of cleaning the ashes out, they'd go to the Newport Creamery for a hot dog. 

That's if they weren't at the beach. Then they'd order them at the concession stand. 

America's favorite athlete at work.
World champion eater Joey Chestnut has consumed 1,094 hot dogs in competitions since in 2005. And that doesn't include the hot dogs he eats to keep in shape -- which, during quarantine, was 90 pounds worth. By the study's standards, Joey should have died about eight years ago. 

And yet he keeps chowing down in contests all over the world. Just this past July 4th, he won $10,000 in the Nathan's Hot Dog eating contest (for the 13th time!) by consuming 76 franks in 10 minutes. 

Or you can just cut to
the chase and drink the
flavored gin.
That's about $132 per hot dog. Joey has made over two million dollars in various eating contests all over the world. You think he's worried what some sketchy study claims? 

However, Joey can start reversing this suicide by processed meat by switching foods. The same study, you see, says one peanut butter & jelly sandwich can add 33 minutes to your lifespan. Again, there's not hardcore proof for this, just like there isn't for baked salmon with rice & beans adding an alleged 15 minutes

I guess if you eat both things every day, that should add 48 minutes, which could start to reverse the 35 minutes you've been losing with the hot dogs. Right now, I'm trying to figure out how much longer I could've lived if I had started the pb & j and salmon diet when I turned 18. 

That's over 17,000 days which have passed, or over 816,000 minutes I could have added. Which equals 566 days -- less than a year and a half. Doesn't seem so exciting now, does it?

Maybe what the folks at U of M should say is something like, Look, why don't you add a few fruits and vegetables to your diet? It couldn't hurt, and you might even like it. Even kids get sick of pb & j every day after a while.

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3 comments:

Gary D said...

Another great read, proving that reading The Ol’ Fish Eye Blog regularly will help you live longer. 😃

Marc said...

Great example of unreproducible research findings.

Marc said...

Great posting. Good cynicism.