Wednesday, February 28, 2007

BZP less dangerous than vitamin supplements

Evidence has finally surfaced on something I have long suspected. TV One Sport with Weather and News featured a "Danish study" showing that increased used of Vitamin A led to a 16 percent incidence of death compared with non-pill poppers. My suspicions were first raised after one too many Beroccas in the nineties. Haven't touched the vitamin industry since.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but at no stage during Lorilei Mason's piece about the story is the actual study named. A quick Google shows it was at the Center for Clinical Intervention Research at Denmark's Copenhagen University Hospital. Thank you Reuters. If the reporting at TVNZ is this bad now, what will it be like after the witch hunt?

I follow a rather simple recipe for good health. Eat food. Exercise. Breathe in. Breathe out. An answer on why eating food is preferable to anything touched by a processing plant is offered by Michael Pollan at the NYT.

I suppose I was fortunate to be the son of a poacher man. I learnt early on and accepted where food came from. To this day, I can eat a medium-rare slab of Bambi without all that guilt that the chicks seem to be flagellating themselves with. One chick I know used to eat bacon, shrimp, cow, you name it. Then red meat went. Then chicken. Then fish and all those lusty crustaceans. Guilt. Loads of guilt.

Thing is, being veggie is a lot of work. Meal preparation time goes through the roof. You can't go mental with lentils in less than ten minutes, which seems to be the median cooking time these days for people in a hurry. You've got to boil the fuck out them for anything over an hour. Same goes with any pulse. Why not grab a can of instant beans instead?

Well, the food in a can has been processed somehow. It's not just beans. While it's possible you grabbed the beans in brine at the supermarket, chances are you grabbed the chilli beans with ten percent more shit in it than other leading brands. Food has become too statistically focused for its own good. Food is not just a bunch of Recommended Daily Intakes. It's holistic baby.