Freakonomics

Just a quick post to let you know about the Freakonomics podcasts.  They are on iTunes but for those who aren't on Apple (it's not 'paleo'*), you can get the mp3s here.

A Scare at Bedtime*

Captain Kid and Flash have been making increasing demands for ghost stories.  (Their idea of a ghost story or horror movie is something along the lines of 'Ello Guv'nor).  This must be something in the blood because me, my parents and my grandparents love ghost stories.  In fact, there's a question - why do we yearn to be scared so?

We were in the car today and a request for a ghost story led to my mind throwing up a classic British chiller known as Lord Dufferin's Ghost - a terrifying tale that chilled my younger self to the bone (and one of several such ghost stories with a 'room for one more' subtext').  A quick google once back at my desk found the exact source of the story (via The Haunted Closet), a book called The Usborne guide to the Supernatural World (Jeez that book scared me back in 1982 - but I loved it!).

Other memorable sources of fear come from films such as The Omen, Salem's Lot and The Exorcist, but these seemed a bit too brash and although scary, I couldn't relate to them - the nightmares would quickly fade.  One film I could relate to was Hammer House of Horror's 'The Two Faces of Evil'.  This film was set in such a damn ordinary context - and every time I made a journey in a car, and especially when it rained, I'd be too scared to look at the landscape less I should see a man in a yellow waterproof!  God forbid we should ever pick up a hitchhiker!  The first five minutes of this film will show you why (although I recommend you watch the whole thing):




Hammer Horror was always a bit cheesy and there were other classier films that would haunt my youth.  Whistle and I Will Come To You is M R James at his best, but hell, at the end of it all, it is a man running away from a bedsheet.

This go me thinking - what film did I find most terrifying as a kid?  A further few minutes on Google and I found it;  a month before my sixth birthday I settled down with my brother and mum to watch Quiet as a Nun, which concluded with this scene:



Sweet dreams!

*Title courtesy of the most excellent Podge and Rodge!

Cancer and Baked Goods

On a day we discover that 'Processed Meats Declared Too Dangerous for Human Consumption' (a subject ably covered by David Calqhoun), it is worth mentioning that food dangers are not confined to the flesh.

I first mentioned acrylamide back in 2008.  Wiki elaborates on this carcinogen,

• Acrylamide...occurs in many cooked starchy foods and is of concern as a possible carcinogen. Acrylamide was accidentally discovered in foods in April 2002 by scientists in Sweden when they found the chemical in starchy foods, such as potato chips, French fries, and bread that had been heated (production of acrylamide in the heating process was shown to be temperature-dependent).  It was not found in food that had been boiled or in foods that were not heated.
  

Grub's Up: 'DON'T PANIC'!

We stray too far from our evolutionary past at our peril.  I will bang this drum again and again; once you 'get' the paleo idea, once you understand its evolutionary drivers, you are quite well placed to go off and implement it for yourself without too much of a problem.  Without gurus.   Hell, without science.

I don't approve of going against science, but science has been heavily battered and bruised by poor quality research - particularly in the field of nutrition.  This is why we in the West with all our scientists and doctors, nutritionists, medical researchers, education and wealth can suffer a deterioration in personal health that would be alien to an Eskimo living an indigenous existence.  Armed with our conventional wisdom we would, of course, march up to said Eskimo and tell him to 'cut back on the saturated fat and red meat'.

Despite some misgivings, a degree of paleo re-enactment gets us precisely the results we desire.  A good example of modern science really screwing up our health is with rickets.