The worst thing since sliced bread?

Here's yet another jaw-dropping revelation courtesy of the obscure research brigade, this time from sunny Italy. According to an article on the BBC News website,

The research, published in the International Journal of Cancer, found patients who ate more bread had a higher risk of kidney cancer.

It said there was a modest rise in the risk with pasta and rice, but a reduction among patients who ate more poultry, processed meat, and vegetables, whether raw or cooked.

Other products, including coffee, tea, eggs, red meat, fish, cheese, potatoes and fruit, appeared to have no bearing.

It does make you wonder, doesn't it, where it will all end? Will we all wind up terrified to consume anything other than organic lettuce and filtered water? Damn, no. There could still be pesticides and chemicals in those...

Anyway, for your information here are some further fascinating facts about bread, courtesy of World Wide Recipes, who in turn attributed it to one of their subscribers, "Terra Andromeda."

1. More than 98 percent of convicted felons are bread users.

2. Fully HALF of all children who grow up in bread-consuming households score below average on standardized tests.

3. In the 18th century, when virtually all bread was baked in the home, the average life expectancy was less than 50 years; infant mortality rates were unacceptably high; many women died in childbirth; and diseases such as typhoid, yellow fever, and influenza ravaged whole nations.

4. More than 90 percent of violent crimes are committed within 24 hours of eating bread.

5. Bread has been proven to be addictive. Subjects deprived of bread and given only water begged for bread after as little as two days.

6. Bread is often a "gateway" food item, leading the user to "harder" items such as butter, jelly, peanut butter, and even cold cuts.

7. Bread has been proven to absorb water. Since the human body is more than 90 percent water, it follows that eating bread could lead to your body being taken over by this absorptive food product, turning you into a soggy, gooey bread-pudding person.

8. Newborn babies can choke on bread.

9. Bread is baked at temperatures as high as 400 degrees Fahrenheit! That kind of heat can kill an adult in less than one minute.

10. Most bread eaters are utterly unable to distinguish between significant scientific fact and meaningless statistical babbling.

Well, I'd better go and make myself a sandwich.

Have a great weekend ... Sz