When Good Vegetables Go Bad For You. From The Pages Of The Ojai Peerer.
Today – Science news from “The Ojai Peerer: Local news you need to know, but will have to wait to get on a bi-weekly basis”.
“Fruits and Vegetables: No Damn Good After All!” screams today’s headline.
In a discovery that is expected to cause shock and dismay in this small town of organically nourished, hemp-clad artists/soul-travellers (and their Mexican housecleaners), a new study has suggested that “5 A Day” has no health benefit other than that of the calories one expends in chopping the five up.
“It’s true”, said Richard Van Boffinbonce of the World Science Center (Ojai Lab). “Fruits and vegetables appear to have no nutritional value of any sort, it turns out. They may cause a bit of wind in some, but otherwise, you might as well eat twigs. Apparantly, we’d been reading the statistics backwards all this time. The head of Research has been on the sauce a bit. That day, back in the 70s, when we were doing the “Fruits and Vegetables: Are They Good For You” study, he’d just lost his parrot in a motorbike accident and was very emotional. It’s a completely understandable mistake. One of these things.” Boffinbonce added “Sorry everyone.”
What has been the reaction to this revelation? I took my tape-recorder and bogus journalist credentials to a local coffee-shop to find out.
Willow MacQuilty, 49, who describes her occupation simply as “Seeker of Truth” sipped thoughtfully on a Chai tea before offering her opinion.
“This is irrelevant news to me” she said. “I eat only a crude bread made from simple water – I prefer Evian – and the finely ground-up stones of our ancestors”.
“Your ancestors?” I attempted to clarify.
“Well, strictly speaking my literal flesh and blood ancestors came from Sweden and Ireland and settled in Wisconsin. I mean the universal spirits of this place.” she said gesturing in a wide sweep at the service counter. “The Sacred Ancient Ones of Ojai. He knows what I mean” she added, and indicated a wizened, leathery old man of Native-American appearance crouched in the corner with a lemonade.
“Que? Que? I’m a legal eemmeegrant. Legal! See, theez are my papers! I only wanna work. Oh pleeze leave me alone.” The panicked old man waved a piece of grass-stained paper under our noses and left arthritically, looking hunted and clearly upset, his lemonade untouched.
“Oh dear! I hope I didn’t upset or offend him in any way at all.” wailed MacQuilty. “We must attempt to reach out to our Mexican brothers and sisters in a spirit of … er… reaching out.”
“Well. he’d just come off a twelve hour day labouring and was stopping off for a coffee to keep him awake before he went to his second job on the night-crew at the Arbolada roadworks. But don’t worry, I expect, he didn’t need a rest anyway”, said an acerbic voice from the next table.
“And how do you feel about the vegetable news, Mr … ?” I asked the 40ish owner of the voice.
“Ben Harris, local contractor”, he said. “And I think “Thank Sweet Jesus for the news!” If my girlfriend had served me sprouted lentils, lightly steamed broccoli in a silken lemon tofu sauce, with a palate-cleansing wheatgrass shake for dessert AGAIN tonight, I was going to leave her.” He indicated the suitcases beside him.
“That’s what I was in here thinking about. Lovely girl but I can’t take the diet any more. I need to eat animals to be happy. This news might be just what we need. I’m off to the florists and then the butchers – our lives are just beginning again!”
“Oh how joyful!” McQuilty said and smiled. Only then did I see the results of eating stone bread on human dentition. Four remaining highly polished stumps remained in her gappy smile, gleaming like impossibly tiny icebergs in her dusty-haired head.
“I’m off to Contemplation Mount to dance about naked in celebration of his new chance at life!” she cried.
“Watch out for bears!” I advised, as she spun away, twirling her arms. “And that lady’s coffee-cup! Oh… Oh dear… Are you terribly scalded?”
“Well, I simply refuse to believe the news” ejaculated a lady I had chosen not to interview upon entering the coffee-shop, having seen her fix my leather bag in her disapproving glare. “I shall not change my eating habits in the least”.
“Despite the fact that that flies in the face of the current overwhelming new evidence that a MacDonald’s happy meal is better for you than a wheelbarrowful of blueberies?” I asked, trying to ascertain whether this Miss Carmen Rollers, 53, of Carne Road, had sustained horrible disfiguring burns lately, or whether she’d just been to the Spa for a peel.
“Why, because of it,” she responded tartly. “I smell a cover-up. Follow the money, I always say”.
I left her saying some of the other things she informs me she always says, and I believe her. Blinking out into the sunlight of Ojai Avenue, I pondered what I’d learnt.
Ojai, it turns out, couldn’t give a vegetable fritterole about the news. We are a town that can absorb blows to our very underlying philosophies. Apart from a few newly happy carnivorous spouses, previously bamboozled with sex into a diet free of flesh, the people remain stoic and untroubled. This reporter fully expects Ojai will still be practicing sustainable berry-farming right through the new meat revolution, because it’s who we are. And because of The Ancients and The Spirits etc. who we all know ate nothing but grass, mud and, oddly, rubber.
June 13th, 2006 at 12:54 am
HIlarious! Seriously. I’m laughing out loud and waking the baby. Oh, but I’ve missed ya Sam.
Meanwhile, I’m prone to believe that the story was placed there by the prez’s cattle rancher friends.
June 13th, 2006 at 8:57 am
Green vegetables, nuts and termites is the authentic primate diet. It’s just the thing to put hairs on your rear end.
June 13th, 2006 at 12:22 pm
Snarf, that amused me to know end. I hate cabbage.
June 13th, 2006 at 3:24 pm
My sources did say they had seen several ten-gallon hatted strangers at the World Science Centre, Ojai, early the other morning. He couldn’t be sure but thought he caught the briefest scent of sausages from them. My source, for this is a Collie named Murdo.
Mr. Nanas, You mean they won’t even give the pope a nice roast beef for his Sunday Lunch. Does Amnesty know he’s been fed beasties? Why do they want God’s representative on Earth to have a hairy bum? I see a new Dan Brown novel in here somewere.
FMC, the only way I would eat cabbage when I ws wee was when my granny told me it was squeaky lettuce and if I chewed it it would squeak on my teeth.
June 13th, 2006 at 5:25 pm
even saying the word ‘cabbage’ leaves a funny taste in your mouth
June 13th, 2006 at 7:19 pm
Well, at least the rubber gives your jaw exercise.
June 13th, 2006 at 8:16 pm
Kathwoffs, Walkers (Great British crisp/chip maker) learnt that the hard way when they introduced their limited edition (very) Tripe ‘n’ Cabbage flavoured crisps. They were hoping to appeal to the customers who wrote to complain they were being taunted by the new crisp flavours when they hadn’t a chance of comparing with the real dishes to see if Walkers had got it right (due to poverty, island location etc). Flavours such as “Thai Sweet Chilli” and “Herbed Lamb and mint sauce” (Wetern Islanders OK on that one) and “Delicately Wine-Poached Chicken, Nestled In Chicory And Wild Mushrooms With a Port and Fig reduction”. That last one didn’t even go down that well in Sloane Square – not enough MSG seemed to be the concensus.
Vegas Joe, there is a scandal afoot in professonal gymnastics though, as athletes as young as six were found to be injecting molten rubber straight into their joints. The investigation is ongoing but looks like it might streeeeeetch out for some time.
June 14th, 2006 at 11:16 am
i think she’s losing it folks.
June 14th, 2006 at 11:19 am
sorry it was me that was accusing you of losing it. sorry also for not reading your blogs recently, world cup fever has hit every nation that knows a proper sport when they see it!
June 14th, 2006 at 5:14 pm
Proper sport? Where’s the international tiddlymink caber tossing then? Eh? Eh? In the black hole where the BBC put anything that isn’t footie, along with the bananaskin-javelin competition and international steak racing. Shameful, I call it.
June 14th, 2006 at 5:15 pm
tiddlywink rather. Anything else would be just stupid!
June 15th, 2006 at 12:57 am
This news warmed the cockles of my bowl. I live with a vegetarian, and my skin has started giving off a subtle matt green glow every time I’m near her. Humankind made a giant leap forward when Australopithecus africanus discovered the joys of delicious cooked animal flesh, and its brain size grew exponentially, with an ensuing boom in intra- and inter-species co-operation as members of the genera Australopithecus and Homo learned to put aside their differences and stone weapons and team up to huny down four-legged creatures to feast on. As a result, war and conflict disappeared from the hominid behavioural lexicon.
This is scientific fact, and I’ll fight anyone who says otherwise.
June 15th, 2006 at 8:32 pm
Oh bollocks, what am I going to do with this enormous pile of organic fruit and veg in my kitchen? You mean to say I’ve been farting like a trooper for years for NO GOOD REASON? I’m gonna sue.
Hello, by the way. *waves* Long time no read, yadda yadda. How was Whitby?
June 16th, 2006 at 11:29 am
The only vegetarian I know is a fat pasty-faced girl with toes that point outwards when she walks. If that’s what scoffing greens and pasta do for a gal they can shove it up their ronson.
June 16th, 2006 at 1:52 pm
As we have seen over and over again…truth has little to do with actual fact but instead is tied directly to the number of times the premise is uttered…ergo…if this story is repeated enough so as to reach and saturate the masses it will be TRUE in the same way there were WMDs in Iraq.
June 17th, 2006 at 8:30 am
I know several people in Kenya who seem to eat nothing but goat meat (fried, and served with nothing except the bones of the animal from which the flesh has been sheared). They seem OK, apart from a tendency to scratch themselves on timber posts whenever the opportunity presents. Three of them have PhD’s. Thus, a lack of vegetables is no barrier to development.
June 17th, 2006 at 12:02 pm
Most amusing indeed! I’ll continue eating whatever I can fit in my mouth, though.
I especially enjoyed the hippie what scared the Mexican.
June 17th, 2006 at 5:54 pm
We once had a visiting Spanish nurse in hospital and she was the most beutiful creature you have ever seen and she used to salivate at the thought of cabbage – maybe they didn’t have it in Spain. As a result we looked at cabbage with different eyes and relished it also.
Never change any habits by someone spouting statistics – with regard to eating habits – breast feeding – anything. Do what feels right for you. Next month it will be a different story.
June 18th, 2006 at 10:02 pm
All the nutrition majors at my university were predominantly female, chubby, and extraordinarily unhealthy eaters. See, I knew I was safe sticking to my three favorite food groups: alcohol, meat and dairy.
June 19th, 2006 at 5:11 am
Wee bro, did you see the US/Italy game? What a corker – 3 red cards, although from where we were sitting in Ojai, it only looked like two of them were worthy of reds. Still, refs decison’s final grumble grumble…
Kathwoffs, release your inner football fan! And if that doesn’t work, think of 22 sweaty, testosterone-sodden men dribbling in a field. And if THAT doesn’t work, watch it for the raw emotion, the sporting athleticism and, of course, the muscular thighs. Aaah! I’ve got your attention there, girl, don’t I? Eh? Eh? Don’t I? You’d forgotten the muscular thighs, hadn’t you? You’re not watching Ness v. Harris now, you know – these are some super-fit men out there in Germany.
Foot Eater, that’s revisionist pre-history and you know it, my friend. Everyone knows that Australopithicus died out because they didn’t think bipedalism was the way to go and in a landmark meeting in The Swamp , ooooh, nigh on several millennia ago, now I think, they nailed the so-called “Diet of Worms” (version 1) to a passing mammoth and from then on lived the lives of hopping frogs. They considered it a move back towards the Olde Piscean Wayes.
Clare! Yep, it’s been a while, chuck. It’s great to hear from you again! Yorkshire was great. I’ve been back to Britain since then too, for 3 weeks in Stornoway. I haven’t been the most diligent blog-wise, but have decided to aim for 2 or 3 a week. I seem to be in a bit of a busy spell at the mo. All sorts going on. I’ll be round your’s by and by though. Lovely to hear from you, Clare. How’s the new novel going?
fmc, there are all manner of permutations of -arians too that I wasn’t aware of. Apparantly, you can be a lacto-pescatarian, which I think is eating a lot of fish in cream sauce. Or a vegan, where you can choose from soy beans and various different kinds of mud for your tea. Actually, I’m technically a chicko-fisho-eggo-yoghurto vegetarian which I didn’t know but I think that’s what you call people who don’t like red meat. I haven’t liked the texture of that since I was a nipper. Apart from my granny’s mince and potatoes that is. I’d walk over glass and burning vegans to get me some of that.
Joel, pah! Next you’ll be telling me that George Bush doesn’t have the ear and voice-mail of God!
Doc. McC. I hope and pray that that is true for the sake of Daughter 1. Who has only recently, at age 4, tried her first potato and onion. Despite the fact that she subsisted on broccoli, lamb’s liver and cauliflower mush for 6 months during weaning.
SafeT. So size is the only limiting factor as to what you’ll eat? Well, the only counsel I can offer is never put anything bigger than your elbow in your mouth. Or wait, is that your ear? Don’t put anything bigger than your elbow in your ear? No. That’s just mad. I like “don’t put anything bigger than your face in your mouth”, the best. Physics is against you.
Pat, I bet the potatoes looked at the cabbage with different eyes too. Bwahahaha! Right, I think it’s clearly time for me to go to bed.
Lindy, most of the medical doctors and nurses of my aquaintance are the same – chain-smoking, cocktail-slamming, TV-dinner-eating ne-er-do-exercisers. What do they know that we don’t? I think they’ve had access to the World Science Center (Ojai lab)’s correct report for some time now but hav been too scared to tell us vegetables are bad for us in case they start losing business, what with all the new-found health and all.
June 19th, 2006 at 9:21 pm
mmm sweet chicken will taste all the better now especially when served with a side portion of er chicken.
June 22nd, 2006 at 2:38 pm
I’m sorry about the Parrot.
I was munching a carrot mid-wheelie when I noticed the errant bird land directly in front of me.
Sadly, I couldn’t get the front wheel back down in time and the unfortunate bird was crushed ‘neath my multi-compound Bridgestone’s.
If I had been eating a pepperami instead, maybe this sorry affair might never have happened
June 22nd, 2006 at 11:46 pm
Mr Furry, in the wake of the recent revelations, scientists are now working to de-proteinize chicken to make it less chickeny when served as a side-dish. They’ve been making progress on a sort of cross between chicken and the more side-dishy broccoli, despite the fact broccoli is proven to be mere filler food. The new product will be called chickolli and is been tested on people from Somerset as we speak.
Mr. UTMG, you people sicken me with your careless vegetarian ways on the road. I hope you know the pain you caused a rather lonely old scientist and parrot-fancier.
June 29th, 2006 at 12:24 am
“How?s the new novel going?”
Sorry, only just saw this. And the answer is… hmmm. Not so great. Not terrible, but not brilliant, but ask me again tomorrow and I’ll probably give a completely different answer. Am failing to achieve much consistency or work fast enough (I only have three months left! Eek!) but I have definitely done some good work, even if I’m not convinced it’s going to be the bestseller it needs to be if I’m going to become Rich and Famous and Bad.
I am trying to enjoy this time, but I confess I’ll be kind of glad when it’s October and I can get on with the rest of my life.