Peas are bad for you….

I read a few science journals and this news just in: Peas are bad for you.

According to the researchers at the MIT unit for food science, it now seems that far from being a healthy green veg, peas are responsible for a lot of suffering and possible deaths. The gas produced by the gut breaking them down is reabsorbed and can poison your system steadily as it reacts with the natural acidity of the body, resulting in symptoms of first of all, bloating, then as the system fails to process it, digestive problems get steadily worse and are being linked with bowel cancer. All due to the humble pea.

OK.

Hands up. Who immediately thought, “I’ve always thought peas make me windy; now I know why!”

OK.

Hands up all of you who have already vowed never to eat another pea?

I lied.

As far as I am aware there is NO food science unit at MIT. Peas are perfectly OK to eat.

Blame the man at the computer shop today; it was his line that started it all. Since I got my new computer I have spent countless hours and have found myself in some discomfort and today I went in to see if there were something I might find to support my wrists as I type and thereby improve my posture. He told me that he had just the thing, and it was the very last one in the shop. He said he used to sell dozens of them, when the buzz word was RSI (repetitive strain injury) but now, only one left in the whole shop and that was dusty from 18 months waiting to be bought. I asked why. Surely the problem of RSI doesn’t magically vanish?

No, he told me, it doesn’t but it fades from public attention. The big thing now is privacy screens. He sells a lot of those now; everybody wants them because it’s been talked about endlessly.

“Bbaaaaaaaaa!” I said.

“Indeed!” he said and sold me both the wrist support and the mousepad with wrist support for a fiver and I left happy but mystified.

How many things do we buy because we are told we have a need for them that we wouldn’t have bought if someone hadn’t told us we needed them? Guilty as charged M’lud. I do it as much as anyone but I am usually savvy to the fact that I can resist; in the end it comes down to deciding whether I want what they want me to want or not. Adverstising works with this weakness in all of us, and makes millions. If someone tells you that you need something, and does so with authority, or if they tell you something is bad for you(again with authority) you don’t question it; we’re conditioned to accept it.

I love sheep but I don’t want to be one any more. How about you?

DISCLAIMER: PEAS ARE FINE FOR YOU.

PS: BUT THEY DO GIVE YOU WIND

PPS: YOU DON’T HAVE TO BELIEVE ME; GO AND FIND OUT FOR YOURSELF.