'The top 10 real things we don't believe in' blog discussion

rpb

What about a list of the Top 10 Make-Believe Things That People DO Believe In? ;-)

Eco_Miser

Stryder wrote: »

6. Wendy Wilshaw: "Pausing live TV while you answer the door to trick or treaters, then carrying on as if nothing happened. It’s like having your own time machine."
Or like pausing a VCR? Really? you can not believe this?

How is stopping a live stream, and having it re-start at the point it stopped the same as pausing a recording? The technology for the second has been around far longer than for the first, they're not equivalent.

Stryder wrote: »

8. Martin Lewis (me): "Drop a feather and a tonne of lead in a vacuum and they’d both fall at equal speeds."

This is not so surprising. The feather is a poor example as it essentially is designed to trap air so we have a preconceived idea how if floats.

That's what make it surprising.

Stryder wrote: »

But if you said 1 tonne of lead and 1/2 tonne of lead, its not so surprising.

esuhl

I also find it hard to believe that about 100 tonnes of coca leaf (the base ingredient of cocaine) are imported each year into the (very anti-recreational-drugs) USA to be used by Coca Cola.

Unfortunately (perhaps?!) the cocaine is removed by a chemical company before it is passed on to Coca Cola. (Although the bottom link below seems to suggest that Coke containing... er... coke... has been sold in recent years).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stepan_Company

More interesting (unverified!) stuff:
http://www.rense.com/general51/coa.htm
http://www.fathers.ca/FEATUREDSTORIES/CocaColastillimportscocaleavestotheUSA.aspx

Traces of cocaine found in Red Bull Cola:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8067970.stm

John_Pierpoint

I believe it.

There are farmers both in the UK and Tasmania growing poppies for the medical morphine market.

In Peru coca leaves, sweets and tea help with overcoming altitude sickness.

ViolaLass

John_Pierpoint wrote: »

That is another high sugar situation; its bit like a natural equivalent of Coca Cola.

Not sure what your point is here. I find it very easy to believe that they both have a lot of sugar in them.

John_Pierpoint

I think my point is that as we are not that far evolved from monkeys (about 2.5% ?) we are programmed to seek out sweet things.
Unfortunately up until about 500 years ago this involved picking fruit or risking Anaphylactic shock by taking on a hive of bees, so we are not adapted to a High Glycemic diet any more than we are adapted to a high tobacco diet.

The thing I don't understand is why liquorice has such a high sugar content.

esuhl

John_Pierpoint wrote: »

I think my point is that as we are not that far evolved from monkeys (about 2.5% ?) we are programmed to seek out sweet things.

Most toxins are bitter, and we are (IIRC) about 100 times more sensitive to bitter flavours than sweet ones. Also, sugar is a good source of energy, so it's no wonder that we have evolved to have a preference for it.

John_Pierpoint wrote: »

The thing I don't understand is why liquorice has such a high sugar content.

According to Wikipedia, "Much of the sweetness in liquorice comes from glycyrrhizin, a compound sweeter than sugar.".

Hadrian

I still can't believe after 50 yrs of The Pill that 46% of children are born to um-married mothers.

esuhl

Hadrian wrote: »

I still can't believe after 50 yrs of The Pill that 46% of children are born to um-married mothers.

I can't believe that anyone would think it's any of their business as to whether a couple are married or not... And I can't believe that anyone should negatively judge un-married mothers when it is surely more responsible to spend money raising a child than it is to spend it on a wedding.

John_Pierpoint

C42H62O16 : glycyrrhizin
C 1 2 H 2 2 O 1 1 : Sucrose ; "sugar".
C2H5(OH): Ethyl Alcohol ; "alcohol"
C1H3(OH): Methyl " ; "meths"
CH4 : Methane ; "natural gas"

All simple products of the chemical works, that our monkey ancestors could not have evolved to process, in present day concentrations.
Sugar and its N. American cousin "corn syrup" are two of the cheapest and most subsidised "foods" available and major contributors to the current obesity epidemic, not to mention mouthfuls of rotting teeth.
http://farmsubsidy.org/GB/
http://farmsubsidy.org/FR/

My DW came back from Tesco with an own brand pot of peanut butter. It proudly boasts 25% less fat (and it tastes strange).

With great difficulty (because the unit of measurement for the contents is "the tablespoon" (what ever than might be) I have managed to translate this apparent health benefit into the following reality hidden in the small print:

Tesco have taken out a quarter of the relatively expensive peanuts and replaced them with "dried glucose syrup and vegetable oil".
So the banner claim should be "We have taken out a quarter of the peanuts and added half a teaspoon of sugar to every tablespoon of peanut butter".

Mr T shame on you