FOUND A PEANUT

Well, if anyone is clinging to the belief that we have NOT turned into a nation of complete jackasses, this should set you straight. Last year in Massachusetts, a lone peanut was discovered on the floor of a school bus full of ten-year-olds. The bus was immediately halted, the students removed, and the bus sent back to the depot for decontamination. This was not anthrax, it was not a dangerous chemical, it was not a BOMB, for crying out loud - it was one lonely, lousy little peanut.

Not that I blame the bus company - there are just too many litigation-happy nutbars (no pun intended) out there to take a chance. But it flies in the face of common sense - I doubt the kids on the bus were scrambling and fighting each other for the chance to eat a dirty old peanut off the floor, even with the two-second rule.

In this age of hysteria, fear-mongering, and catering to the minority, it seems that rationality and reason have flown out the window. Probably cowering in a tree somewhere, alongside freedom of choice and having the wrong opinion.

Food allergies in kids under 18 have increased by 17% between 1997 and 2007, according to the CDC. Are these actual cases? Diagnosed by specialists? Suspected? Self-diagnosed? Invented by some parents afflicted with a strange form of Munchausen's by proxy, in which they enjoy the extra attention?

Or are they real, perhaps due to the recent practice of not exposing kids to various foods in early childhood. Interestingly,  the incidence of children's nut allergies in the UK is about 2%, while in Israel, where kids are fed nuts from infancy, it is only .17%. Allergies in general are on the rise, possibly due to the current obsession with having a germ-free home environment.

I'm not saying there aren't cases of severe peanut allergies, just like shellfish allergies or bee-stings, where the person is in actual danger of dying. I'm just saying that with any allergy, many people claim allergic status when it isn't really there. It's a lot easier to get people to stop wearing perfume in the office if it affects your health than it is to just say you don't like it, right?

The problem is, everyone wants their own issues to be paramount. In the US, only 2,000 hospitalizations per year are due to food allergies of any kind - with only 150 resulting in death, and not all of those death by peanut. So how did such a tiny percentage of actual risk end up justifying such extreme measures?

How did it get so ridiculous that the overwhelming majority of students can't take a perfectly nutritious, affordable sandwich to school because a handful of kids have (or may have) an allergy? How did it escalate to the point where some people now believe that molecules of peanut in the air can harm their kids? Where people are cutting down nut trees in their yards, even though peanuts don't even grow on trees. They're a LEGUME, like a pea, for God's sake!

This trend cannot possibly sustain itself. The me-first attitude that says everyone around you must change their behavior to accommodate your wishes is not viable in the long run, because more and more people want to push their own agenda. If the peanut thing flies, how far behind is the no-tuna rule? Look at all the problems just in the allergy sector. Shellfish, eggs, milk products, dust, pet hair, feathers, cosmetics: everyone brings something with them or on them to school. 

What happens when, inevitably, the "rights" clash? If one kid has an allergy to sunscreen, then what? Do all the kids stop using it at school to accommodate the one? How would that scenario play out, since sunscreen use is even more promoted than peanut awareness? That one should be interesting.

I guess the answer would be to issue all the kids HAZMAT suits instead of school uniforms. Or, better yet, home-school them. At least they'd be safe from the latest communicable disease: media-induced paranoia.

MRS. PELICAN'S KILLER COOKIES (delicious!)

1 c. artery-hardener (butter or marg)

1/2 c. white death (sugar)

3/4 c. brown death (brown sugar)

1 cholesterol-raiser (egg)

2 1/4 c. lethal carbohydrate (flour)

1 tsp. acid neutralizer (baking soda)

1/2 tsp. hypertension inducer (salt)

3/4 c. pancreas-destroyer (chocolate chips)

Mix artery-hardener with white and brown death. Add cholesterol-raiser. Add dry ingredients and pancreas-destroyer and mix well. Drop by spoonfuls onto ungreased baking sheet. Don't flatten. Bake at 325 for 8 to 10 minutes or until done.

Make some caffeine-loaded beverage of your choice. Stick Cremo in it. Grab those still-warm weapons of mass destruction and start chomping. Eat. Drink. Smile. Be glad that you're not afraid of cookies.

NO SWIMMING

There is a new breed emerging. Or maybe they're not so new. You remember them from grade school - those whiny, bossy, spoiled little tattle-tales that no one wanted to play with. Well, they're all grown up now, and STILL no one wants to play with them.

They don't get invited to fun things like beach parties, so they want beach fires banned. After all, fires cause smoke and pollution, and often lead to unhealthy activities like beer-drinking and hot-dog eating. Health Canada wouldn't like that.

These kind of people are very big on preserving things for the future. Who's future? Not mine - I've noticed that as soon as local busybodies get local government involved, things get "preserved" right out of the public's hands. Seal Bay park is a prime example. It used to be a nice place to walk, bike, or ride until the Regional District got hold of it. Now it is a disgusting mess of barriers, man-made structures, plastic pipe and ditches. Trails are closed or segregated, access restricted, and everywhere those Godawful signs, including one with a handy rat-line number in case you want to report someone farting in the wrong spot.

People are getting into heated confrontations over who's allowed to use which trails, and bad feelings abound. It never used to be like this - everyone just peacefully coexisted and enjoyed themselves. But hey, local government knows best, it's for the public good. Oh yes, I just LOVE to see my tax dollars spent on ensuring that I can only visit the park during certain hours or use certain trails. I'm just waiting for the paved parking and admission charge. Nature park, my ass.

And now I read in the paper that some do-gooder wants to get the pesky swimmers and campers out of Comox Lake. This person has been here A WHOLE TEN YEARS and has "noted with concern the intensive and expanding use of the Comox lake watershed". Well, I've been here forty years and you know what I've noted with concern? The increasing number of meddling ignoramuses who move here because they like it, then try to "improve" it to suit themselves. Somewhat similar to the city people who move to the country because it's "natural", then try to get bylaws passed because they don't like the smell of the dairy farm next door.

From what I understand, the water in the lake tests just fine - the only way we are going to have a problem with the water supply is if we keep allowing development which encourages people like this to move here. I think getting rid of the greedy developers would do a lot more good than getting rid of campers. What's the answer? Stop enjoying the lake, as most of us have been doing all our lives? Put a big fence around it with "No Trespassing" signs? We could just show our kids pictures of the lake while they play in their Mr. Turtle pools in the back yard.

Apparently this person is contacting the Ministry of Healthy Living and Sport. What the hell is that? When the heck did we get one? Boy, they snuck that one right by me. Doesn't "living" come under the category of your own personal business? Oh, wait a minute - it must be a branch of the "Government Taking Your Money And Using It To Dictate Your Behavior" department. I forgot about them.

Well, I hope this person isn't successful in sucking the fun out of Comox Lake. I somehow think there's a better way to address the issue of water management than banning swimming and camping on a very small area of a very large lake.

But for some people, solving the problem isn't really the point. The point is to come up with more regulation and restrictions - I guess it makes them feel important. No wonder no one wants to play with them.

IN DEFENSE OF FAT

I'm not loving this low-fat business. I went to my favorite (cheap) store yesterday to buy yogurt, and my usual brand was gone. Seems they had to drop some varieties to make room for the million new kinds of low-fat, non-fat, calorie-reduced, aspartame-laced crap the public has been gobbling up lately. I can't believe the Great Media God has actually convinced people to be afraid of fat. WAKE UP!! WE NEED FAT!! YOU WOULD ACTUALLY DROP DEAD WITHOUT IT!!!

What do you think your brain is made of? About two-thirds fat, is what. And kids need fat, too. In fact, children under two should not have fat-restricted diets because of adverse effects on growth and development. So there.

The point is, fat is not your enemy: ignorance is. Do you really think the manufacturers of 'healthy' and 'lite' products give a rat's ass about you? Give me a break - if there was a profitable way to recycle kitty litter and market it as a granola bar, somebody would be doing it. Fat itself is not inherently bad, as some people would have you believe, just a problem if you eat the wrong kind in the wrong amounts. And removing fat does not automatically make a food 'healthy'. 

What troubles me most is that so much advertising is aimed at parents, insinuating that the products being promoted are somehow better for your kids than real food. Vitamin packed! Good source of minerals! Gives them the energy to play hard! Yeah, well so does a sardine, but it doesn't have a picture of a superhero on it or a bunch of ads showing how cool you'll be if you eat it.

Here's how it works: take a perfectly good piece of food, process most of the nutrition out of it, add back some 'enrichment' and preservatives and don't forget the artificial sweetener. Add a few hundred thousand dollars worth of advertising and a picture of someone in spandex bike shorts grinning like a chimp. Voila: health food.

Heaven forbid you should send your kid to school with a peanut butter sandwich and a piece of fruit. Omigod - the kid sitting three rows down might keel over and drop from third-hand peanut breath exposure. Then you'd all have to go for counselling. 

Bad enough that adults fall for this so-called healthy lifestyle advertising, but I really resent the fear-mongering that allows big business to pimp our kids for profit. Don't give your kids cheese, it's BAD for them. But our new low-carb fat-reduced just-about-cheese product is GOOD. And conveniently packaged in plastic with an expiry date of 2052.

Take a look at the ingredient list on some of the so-called healthy foods. You might be surprised to find sugar (or worse, sugar substitute) listed near the top. If you listen carefully to the ads, notice phrases like "may help to", "studies suggest", and "has been associated with". Translation: We're not allowed to outright lie, but we sure as heck would like to give the impression that this stuff is good for you.

When a company makes a profit from a trend, it behooves them to get others on the bandwagon. The more money involved, the easier to get others on board. Finance some studies, take some surveys, get some intense media campaign going, and you can pretty much demonize anything you want. If you can get the government in on it, so much the better. Restricting ads for certain products and imposing taxes on them (such as is now being considered for 'unhealthy' foods) is certainly creating an unfair marketplace, not to mention trampling our freedom of choice into the ground. It is not the role of the government to influence what I choose to eat or drink. I personally believe that eating sugar is healthier than eating a chemical substitute (go to Mercola.com for a gazillion reasons not to use artificial sweeteners, including weight gain!). Slanting the market in favor of so-called 'healthy' choices is not concern for public health. It is SOCIAL ENGINEERING. Two of the scariest words in the English language.

"No one believes more firmly than Comrade Napoleon that all animals are equal. He would be only too happy to let you make your decisions for yourselves. But sometimes you might make the wrong decisions, comrades, and then where should we be?"

(Squealer speaking to the farm animals in George Orwell's Animal Farm, 1945.)