The question…
What is puzzling is how we – each one of us – should respond to all this persuasively authoritative information.
Well, yes, we are bombarded daily with studies that tell us we eat too much, smoke too much, drink too much, imbibe too much sugar, salt or fat – or all of the above. We are getting too fat, or we are suffering eating disorders, we are drunkards and addicts and as a result we will die. Given that many of these studies are so much junk (see what I did there?) there really is only one solution. That is to ignore them and carry on as you are. Eat what you like, drink as you wish and if you like to smoke, then puff away with abandon. It is your life and you must live it as you please, not as the health Nazis would dictate.
So, yeah, simple answer, which condensed to a couple of words is: fuck off!
Where is the quote from? Were they arguing for or against said information?
Oops! I forgot to put the link in. CiF. Actually, broadly, arguing that we shouldn’t take them too seriously.
While listening to independent radio the other day, it occurred to me that much of the bombardment that you speak of is the result of lazy journalism. The news slot seemed to be simply repeating press releases from those who carry out shonky “scientific” studies. In this one brief news slot we got salt, sugar, caffeine alcohol and smoking. One item was claiming that children were being exposed to dangerous levels of salt and sugar by their breakfast cereals. Could they not have tracked down just one knowledgeable person to refute this absurd assertion?
At least this poor reporting isn’t costing me money, like the constant advertisements for something called ‘Change for life’.
Salt is a classic. In the near past we were all led to believe that too much salt would have us dropping like flies. I assert that the converse could be true. Many years ago whilst in the far east, my wife went ashore to the beach with some of my engineering department (I was left behind to oversee essential repairs to the vessel’s equipment). After a while after her return, she admitted to me that she felt faint and nauseous. Having had experience of that myself, I immediately grabbed a glass, went to the pantry and emptied half a salt cellar into the glass of water. I forced her to drink it and after half an hour she was right as rain.
To me this proves that there will never be a safe level of anything. It all depends on the circumstances.
I smoke, drink, like salt, sugar and every other thing that they want to quit. I must have been a wonder to my employer as in 43 years of work, I only took 8 days of sick.