The Very-Many-Questions-Not-Worth-Their-Own-Thread Thread XXXIV

[Valka D'Ur]

1. Milk is bad for your bones
2. Fresh fruit causes cancer
3. Red meat linked to muscle atrophy
4. The food pyramid you're all familiar with is completely arbitrary and baseless

find the lie

I can't take any dietary information seriously, particularly because we've reversed course on literally every stance we've ever taken since the field came into existence.

There's been a decision in the province of New Brunswick to stop offering chocolate milk and fruit juice to students who get their lunches or snacks from the school.

One of the officials made a pompous speech about the schools having to teach the kids what a "proper" meal looks like.

Seriously, fruit juice? As for chocolate milk, the school where I spent 6 years had a milk program. The idea was that the Grade 6 kids sold it throughout the year at noon hour, and the proceeds were used to send them to an outdoor education camp at the end of the year. Parents paid either month-to-month or annually, and specified if the kids were to receive chocolate milk or regular milk.

Since this was a county school with no cafeteria and most kids weren't allowed off school property during the day, this was a big help. All I needed was a sandwich and fruit or dessert from home, and the school provided a serving of milk.

Strangely enough, I'm still alive. The Evil Chocolate Milk didn't kill me.

I do realize that there's a lot of sugar in beverages now. Unless you squeeze the juice yourself, you're going to get added sugar. But the ranting about juice vs. pulp in that news article gives the impression that even if a kid were to bring an orange and a juicer to school and do everything manually, the teacher would still make disapproving noises that the juice is no good and only the pulp should be consumed.

 

[Traitorfish]

I'm increasingly tending to think that this sort of regulation exists at least partly to give regulators something to do. The point is not to move towards a better or healthier world, but to ensure that regulatory institutions are kept active, and the public trained in their role as the objects of regulation. The regulation is not intended to achieve a given public health outcome, rather, "public health" exists to the extent that we can use it to measure the impact of regulation. If the only thing we ate was a grey, flavourless nutri-slurry, public officials would very soon start instructing us that certain consistencies of slurry are to be preferred and others avoided.

/don't tread on me

 

[Broken_Erika]

I'm increasingly tending to think that this sort of regulation exists at least partly to give regulators something to do. The point is not to move towards a better or healthier world, but to ensure that regulatory institutions are kept active, and the public trained in their role as the objects of regulation. The regulation is not intended to achieve a given public health outcome, rather, "public health" exists to the extent that we can use it to measure the impact of regulation. If the only thing we ate was a grey, flavourless nutri-slurry, public officials would very soon start instructing us that certain consistencies of slurry are to be preferred and others avoided.

/don't tread on me

Slurry is bad for you. Stick to Soylent Green.

 

[Synobun]

Nutrition science will continue to be imprecise for a long, long time. All of these studies are inherently flawed because even the best subjects will have been influenced by their environment over the years. Precision will improve with further testing. You might find that one population has an increased cancer risk after eating red meat, but this risk may not come from the meat itself or it may simply be a coincidence from the local gene pool. Test more, learn more, take none of it as gospel.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

1. Milk is bad for your bones
2. Fresh fruit causes cancer
3. Red meat linked to muscle atrophy
4. The food pyramid you're all familiar with is completely arbitrary and baseless

find the lie

I can't take any dietary information seriously, particularly because we've reversed course on literally every stance we've ever taken since the field came into existence.

That's because many scientific fields are stil in their infancy and it's inevitable that a lot of older knowledge tuns out to be BS. I remember a Biochmistry lecture where the professor basically said "By the way, those are just educated guesses. We don't really know how any of this works."

 

[Commodore]

I need some help. I'm working on a WWIII scenario for CivIII (yeah, I still mod CivIII) and I'm having a little trouble working out the alliances. Due to the 31 civ limit in CivIII I used the 30 most powerful nations militarily according to the Global Firepower Index with the rest of the world falling under a generic "United Nations" civ.

I am breaking the civs into four different locked alliances based on the allies of the four most powerful nations according to the Global Firepower Index (US, Russia, China, India). Obviously the NATO nations are allied with the US and North Korea is allied with China, but the rest of them I am struggling to place because while researching current global alliances, I found a lot of these countries really could be reasonably allied with several of the major powers. And some of them are US allies, but I don't want to ally them with the US for balance reasons, so I am restricting US allies to only NATO members. That means I need to place nations like Australia and South Korea with one of the other alliances (no neutrality in this scenario except for the UN civ).

Anyway here are the list of nations I still need to place in an alliance. I'll also put who I'm considering placing them with in parentheses so let me know if it makes sense to you or if there are changes you'd make. If there's nothing in parentheses then that means I have no idea who to place them with:

Algeria
Australia (India)
Brazil
Egypt
Indonesia (India)
Iran (Russia or China)
Israel (Russia or India)
Japan (India)
Pakistan (China)
Saudi Arabia
South Korea (India)
Taiwan (India)
Thailand
Ukraine
Vietnam

 

[civvver]

I guess it depends if you want balance or realism by like today's climate. Cus there is no way in hell Israel is aligning with anyone other than US/nato. Here's what I would do just for sake of interest:

Algeria - Russia. Gives them a presence in Africa, and they don't really fit elsewhere.
Australia - India. Let's make India rule all Oceania!
Brazil - Russia. Gotta be some commie connection in south america! Let's just pretend like they subverted all their population and rigged some elections.
Egypt - I actually like them aligning with the west (US) but if it's too much power give them to Russia as well. Russia will have a strong middle east/northen africa bloc.
Indonesia - India
Iran - Russian. Again proximity is pretty good, Russia has interests in the region already
Israel - Can't see anyone other than US here
Japan - I would actually do China here
Pakistan - Definitely China cus they hate India
Saudi Arabia - India or Russia. Russian alliances may be getting too strong at this point
South Korea - India cus again I don't think they like the Chinese much
Taiwan - India, same as above
Thailand - China. Let's do the same thing Russians did with brazil, pretend they subjugated them.
Ukraine - Just give it to Russia. Like Russians exert military force and overtake them politically.
Vietnam - China

 

[GoodSarmatian]

Seriously, fruit juice?

Yeah, seriously.
Fruit is healthy, fruit juice is not. It has all the sugar and very little fiber. A glass of orange juice is about as healthy as a can of Coke.

 

[Lexicus]

Yeah, seriously.
Fruit is healthy, fruit juice is not. It has all the sugar and very little fiber. A glass of orange juice is about as healthy as a can of Coke.

Store-bought fruit juice, sure, but if you squeeze it yourself it's pretty kewl.

 

[BenitoChavez]

Yeah, seriously.
Fruit is healthy, fruit juice is not. It has all the sugar and very little fiber. A glass of orange juice is about as healthy as a can of Coke.

Yeah but fruit juice still has some vitamins and minerals in it so I consider it a step up from a Coke. You're right that eating the whole fruit is best.

 

[Samez]

Sugar content, which is important for adipositas and diabetes risk, is for fruit juice roughly the same as drinking the same amount of softdrinks.
Vitamins and trace elements should not be an issue in western societies if you are healthy and have a balanced diet (vegans i am looking at you).

 

[BenitoChavez]

I'm not sure what it's like in the center of nowhere, but here in 'Murica just 1 in 10 adults meet the federal fruit or vegetable recommendations. I wouldn't consider that balanced at all.

 

[Broken_Erika]

I'm not sure what it's like in the center of nowhere, but here in 'Murica just 1 in 10 adults meet the federal fruit or vegetable recommendations. I wouldn't consider that balanced at all.

Odd, i thought there were far more fruits than that among the US population.

 

[BenitoChavez]

Odd, i thought there were far more fruits than that among the US population.

I think you confused US fruits with Russian plants.

 

[Broken_Erika]

I think you confused US fruits with Russian plants.

Do nuts count?

 

[civvver]

Saying eat this much specifically every day seems a little dubious. Cus if you have a full size salad that could be 4 cups of vegetables but you might only eat that every other day. Also the types of vegetables, leafy greens fill a cup a lot quicker though by weight you aren't eating much, whereas something like steamed peas shelled would be pretty heavy. A cup of that is a lot and satiating, which isn't bad, but what I'm saying is I could scarf down three cups of romaine lettuce no problem vs a half cup of peas which have more fiber and other nutrients.

 

[Birdjaguar]

This band is playing next month at the city amphitheater. They call themselves Metalachi. "The World's First and Only Heavy Metal Mariachi Band Born in Juarez, Mexico and raised in East L.A., Metalachi is four brothers and a sister. Get ready for your heavy metal favorites — from Led Zeppelin to Ozzy to Guns & Roses — a la Mariachi!" Looking at their picture there's a lot of spandex, some in cheetah print. Big hair all over, including two blonde, a silver, and a purple (she's kinda cute). Some major league silver embroidered black velvet sombreros. At least one pair of Kiss style platform thigh boots. Two guitars, a violin, and a trumpet.

I'm thinkin' some sort of culture is being appropriated. I'm sure that someone, somewhere, is probably offended. I just can't guess who.

You know you did not post a link to them so it would be easy to see them in action.


Link to video.

 

[Lemon Merchant]

Ugg. The lipstick on the girl is repulsive.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Ugg. The lipstick on the girl is repulsive.

I guess turquoise is not your color. It kinda goes with the pale lilac hair....How about the colored contacts on the lead singer? I don't think they are going for a beautiful people look.

 

[Takhisis]

I need some help. I'm working on a WWIII scenario for CivIII…

I'd say find out where each country has military bases in and take it off from there. Handwave any explanations for changes that really would depend on game balance by their being occupied territories (and thus there you have a casus belli, too).