Pet Please #72: When Scientists Decide That Something Delicious Is Good for You

I can’t wait for the day that scientists reveal that a daily dip in a chocolate river is good for you.

You know the moment. You’re flipping through the news or the paper or Google Reader when you see the headline:

Scientists Declare That Small Doses of Dark Chocolate Are Good for You

Your heart skips a beat. Hallelujah, the day has come! You can now take your coveted 3:00 dark chocolate break without feeling guilty. Heck, you might eat a few extra today to celebrate the good news.

It always makes my day when scientists decide that something delicious is good for you. I mean, they’re scientists. You’ve always suspected that a little dark chocolate helps to lower your stress levels, but now there’s proof. People in white labcoats say so.

Of course, it goes well beyond dark chocolate. I think I’ve heard that a beer a day is good for you. And/or a glass of red wine a day. A little bit of soda can settle your stomach. Even popcorn isn’t bad for you until you add all the butter and salt (I figure that the healthiness of the corn balances out with the unhealthiness of the butter and salt, for a net gain/loss of zero).

Which delicious indulgence of yours would you like scientists to reveal to be healthy?

Also, I don’t want to inundate you with Viticulture posts, but if you’d like to take a quick second to vote on the most effective Kickstarter ad for my board game, click here and vote on the one-question poll. Thanks!

16 thoughts on “Pet Please #72: When Scientists Decide That Something Delicious Is Good for You”

  1. Pizza. I mean, how do you top it (no pun intended)?! Pizza is a massive, ooey, gooey smorgasboard of deliciousness and cheese. I’ll take pretty much everything on mine (except black olives) and don’t forget the extra cheese!

    An added bonus to pizza? It goes well with beer OR wine! does it get any better than that?!

    So when scientists decide that pizza with extra cheese and toppings is actually good for you, I’ll be first in line at Marcos.

    Reply
    • I think you just cued Trevor for a potentially amazing comment on the health benefits of pizza. I’m not sure if he’s available for commenting, but if he is, brace yourself for the amazingness. By the end of the comment, he’ll have you convinced not only that pizza is healthy, but also that the mere fact that you’re not eating pizza RIGHT NOW is greatly hurting your health.

      Reply
  2. Although pizza is a really good answer, I can say for certain that sadly it will be unlikely. People with gluten intolerance mostly give it up.
    I would like to offer another dessert. Custard is so perfect. You can have it in so many incarnations. Flan, custard, custard filling, as part of tiramisu…

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  3. Coffee. I need coffee to be good for me. It is the last of my vices, and one that I can not possibly give up. I am pretty sure that I am THE most caffeinated person on the planet as my sister will readily attest to. I have been known to drink 32 oz of Starbucks joe in about a half an hour time span on road trips, down pots of coffee for breakfast, and, at a recent trip with a friend to Fitz’s just had to try out the coffee cola (made with Kaldi’s coffee which was delicious by the way) even though I don’t even drink soda. I come from a long line of coffee swillers who need at least a half a pot to get coherant every morning and we could all use the thumbs up that our caffeine habit was reallly making us healthy, instead of just wired.

    Reply
    • I’m rather curious about this coffee soda now. I only drink coffee in the form of frappacinos–and very rarely at that–would I like this soda?

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      • Hmm, I think so. Upon first taste, I thought it was reminiscent of horehound candy. But the more I drank it, the more it tasted like a really sweet iced coffee. If you are a sweet coffee kind of person, then it may be right up your alley, it would at least be worth checking out.

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        • I do like sweet iced coffee–it was all over the place in Japan. I’ll go to Fitz’s to check it out. Thanks for the tip! Hopefully scientists will tell me that it’s healthy.

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    • Melanie, I’ve actually heard that coffee can be good for you. There’s a recent study out there somewhere. But the benefits decrease if you add milk or sugar. You have to drink it black to reap the health benefits! That makes it no fun, IMO, personally I can’t drink it straight.

      Reply
      • Well, I am a black coffee kind of girl, so score! Although, my free birthday drink at Starbucks today was a Venti triple espresso Cinnamon Dolce Soy latte…. so I am going to tell myself that I made the healthy choice, anyway.

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  4. On the topic of “good for you” and “scientists” I give you The Egg. People have been eating eggs since before we domesticated The Chicken (yes, that one chicken). Like 15 years ago, we heard that eggs weren’t good for us, and everyone panicked. A few years later, they said they were fine. Then they came back and said that the whites were fine but the yolks were bad, and we got egg beaters, some kind of liquid egg (still, better than those powdered eggs). I don’t like making moral judgments on food. When studies are done, the scientists should usually report findings; such as that they observed people who ate eggs they saw X, or that they have witnessed Y in people who eat eggs. But the facts are usually presented to us in TV Teaser ads as “Are Eggs killing you? Tune in at 10 for the answer.” If eggs have arsenic in them, let’s get it out on the table. Otherwise, let me know the situation, and I’ll decide for myself.

    Also, this idea that one food is better for you than another has more to do with your personal health history, what activities you do on a regular basis, and if you have some kind of health goal you’re working toward.

    If I was to make a food healthy for you, and someone already worked out Pizza, I’d shoot for Cast-iron Chocolate Chip Cookies w/Ice Cream.

    Reply
    • Red and I have clearly mind-melded. I was just about to comment on The Incredible Edible Egg, and its back-and-forth saga from unhealthy to healthy and back again!

      I believe that the only joy in a scientist’s life is to declare a food healthy, wait for people to grow fond of it as a health food, then suddenly announce that NEW evidence shows it’s actually horribleawfulkiller unhealthy. Somewhere, at the time of that announcement, there is a lab full of nerds in white coats rubbing their hands together with glee and emitting a heartily evil BwaaHaaHaaaaaa.

      Two points for medical science. General public: zero.

      Reply
  5. I know I’ve been absent from the comments today, but I just wanted to say that I love the additions of bacon eggs, as well as the idea of scientists deriving their greatest joys from tearing the dream away from the rest of us.

    Reply

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