ŷ������

So, you are about to tuck into a lentil burger with chia seed extract for that omega three boast you know your body has been crying out for since your last detox, especially since you aren’t completely sure if the cannabis oil you’ve been baking into your gluten free cookies has given you indigestion or if it is the start of the stomach cancer you thought you might have had and was the reason why you started eating the damn things in the first place. The guy on the Internet who sold you the oil sounded damn convincing, but, then again, so did the guy who told you that you needed mega doses of vitamin Q �� an extract from goat urine and krill that, if taken in large enough doses, might even make your hair curly.

If this sounds like Tuesday, rather than a WTF moment, then this is a book you really, really need to read, and right now. Actually, no matter what your religion, you need to read this book. This guy is both very funny and very clever �� these are, truth be told, two of my favourite things in the whole wide world. As much as I hate to admit it, I would probably forgive just about anyone anything if they can just display these two qualities �� even only every now and again.

But this book is also insanely important for you to read as well. In it you will learn stuff. Let me explain how I came to read it.

A couple of weeks ago there was a newspaper article �� no, a flood of newspaper articles all over my social media feeds �� all about research that proved that you get cancer by bad luck rather than any of that other crap you thought you got cancer from �� you know, ‘life style��, smoking, stuff like that. This might sound like bad news, but since there is stuff-all you can do about bad luck �� even if you are a management arsehole who ‘makes his own luck�� �� that then has a reassuring ring to it if you think about it for long enough. Pass the smokes and yes, I will have a double, no, stuff it, just leave the bottle. Except the next day or so another article appeared in the Guardian that said this first series of articles were all crap �� AND that the reason why they were all crap was because journalists are too bloody stupid to know if a bus is up them, well, unless the passengers get out, and if you want to avoid being fooled again, read this book. So I did. And they were right. This is a necessary read �� you’ve been repeatedly told that now �� and I’m going to tell you again �� what are you waiting for?

What will you be told by reading this book? Well, one of the main things is that there are two things that have been repeatedly shown to lead to a healthy and productive life �� eat food, mostly vegetables with lots of fruit thrown in for the colours if nothing else, and exercise. There is no magic pill, there is no secret wonder food, there is only that to know �� eat stuff that is good for you and exercise enough so that your body doesn’t atrophy and you’ll probably be ok. No guarantees, by the way, life doesn’t come with guarantees, but do that and you are doing your bit, do less than that are you are building up Karma that’s going to get you, sooner or later. When people tell you that you need to do more than this eating food and moving your arse occassionally, they are selling you something, and the most likely thing they are selling you is bullshit. As he says, someone who tells the truth or someone who lies are similar in that at least both of them know there is a truth that is worth lying about �� however, someone who bullshits doesn’t even give the truth that level of respect.

It is embarrassing to admit the amounts of bullshit I assumed must have a bit of scientific backing behind them before reading this book. The most obvious one being the whole fish oil idea, hmm. But I’m guilty with an excuse. I am someone who really doesn’t like the taste of fish. There are times when I will eat fish �� those times are directly correlated to when I’m in a Japanese restaurant �� but I’m really not going to thank you for giving me fish. Particularly something strong and oily like sardines. I can understand why some people might want to put sardines into other people’s mouths �� just as I can understand waterboarding �� but to willingly do this to themselves is a form of flagellation I’ve never quite understood �� torturing others, fine, but yourself? Not even Dick Cheney water boards himself. I know, there are international conventions on this sort of thing, but they are all so 1945, don’t you think? So, if you want to put sardines in your mouth �� and I feel a bit queasy even suggesting such a thing - well, that’s up to you, but I still have to come down on the side of Nuremberg when it comes to doing this to other people.

This reluctance of mine to eat fish in general, but oily fish in particular, has made me prone to the idea that I probably should have fish oil supplements to make me smarter or to prevent arthritis, or one of the other wondrous things these oils do. And, if ‘odourless�� wasn’t a cruel hoax, I would be using these tablets today. Fortunately, the problem is that there doesn’t seem to have ever been any conclusive evidence that taking these tablets does any of the things attributed to them, or at least they don’t make you smarter.

This is where you are supposed to say, ‘Yep, and that is because of the drug companies �� there’s no money in patenting something natural and so they refuse to pay for the research��. Except, the people who do make these tablets make bucket loads of money �� so why don’t they pay for the research? Simple answer, they are not interested in ‘proof��, they are only interested in your general feelings of unease mixed with a medical sounding science-y enough sort of vague idea with the right ‘vibe�� that encourages you to buy the damn things in the first place �� they don’t expect them to ‘work��, other than psychologically to let you think you have done your bit to improve your health without that ‘bit�� involving you actually eating better food or shifting your arse now and again. How sad we have become when we actually seem to believe that all cures come in pills.

This bit of the book, the bit on fish oils and how the company that produced them gave out millions of the damn things in a study (well, not really a study) to see if they would make high school students smarter, is perhaps the most disturbing part of what had been up to this point a quite disturbing enough kind of book to be getting on with.

Want to know why kids might not do so well at school? Well, then start looking at the actual diets they have, look at their social class and the stresses and strains that puts on their lives and their ability to study (you know, like not enough food in their stomach, no where quiet to do homework, constant humiliation because they can’t afford pens, paper, uniform, excursions, sports fees) before you give them some crap pill as a cure-all. As is pointed out here, the pills given to these students would have cost more than the school lunches they got.

The other things this book will help you understand are, in no particular order �� the Hawthorn Effect, the Placebo Effect, why you shouldn’t listen to someone who gives you statistics that are based on percentages, rather than in actual numbers in the population, why your kid needs their MMR jabs �� just frigging do it - and how to know if something about medicine is probably bollocks �� HINT: if a journalist is telling you and it sounds exaggerated, it probably is and you should probably ignore what they are saying. In fact, one of the best cures to most social ills would probably involve banning journalists from, well, just about everything. Unfortunately, it seems that journalists main qualification in life is that they can write rather convincingly about things they know next to nothing about �� how we have not descended into utter oblivion already is one of the mysteries of modern living and one that is still open to speculation. That rational people constantly predict the end is nigh isn’t surprising, that we haven’t all drowned in a sea of pomegranate juice is what is surprising.

Like I said at the start �� you need this book. Not least so that when you decide you are going to start eating berries with names you can’t even pronounce it won’t just be because Oprah has them on her superfoods list, but because they taste nicer than raspberries �� which is basically the only reason one should eat just about anything.