You Might Be a Zombie and Other Bad News Part 8

5. ART.

Stendhal syndrome is an "attack of dizziness, confusion, elevated heartbeat, or hallucination upon exposure to great works of art." It was first diagnosed in the nineteenth century, when Stendhal took a trip to Florence and got a face full of aesthetically transcendent disease. Since then, there have been 107 doc.u.mented sufferers, including Fyodor Dostoevsky.

The diagnosis's stipulation that the art must be great raises a number of troubling and ridiculous questions. Do doctors in the general proximity of the Louvre have a list of the works that qualify as great? Do they throw up their hands in befuddlement when patients fly into seizures at the sight of art the medical establishment deems "pretty good" or "just aight"? Could it be that Stendhal syndrome is simply a snootier version of the syndrome that teenage girls have been suffering from at Michael Jackson and Justin Timberlake concerts for years?

Until more is known, doctors recommend steering clear of anything that has shown even the slightest whiff of cultural value. Or they would if you couldn't also get seizures from . . .

4. MARY HART'S VOICE Mary Hart's voice has always been known to hold tremendous power. It can determine what pa.s.ses for tonight's entertainment or sink a budding celebrity romance before it ever gets off the ground. But as recorded in a 1991 New England Journal of Medicine New England Journal of Medicine article, it can also cause violent epileptic seizures. The article relates the case of a woman who, upon hearing Hart's voice, suffered "an abnormal electrical discharge in the brain, disorientation, nausea, and headaches." She only got the seizures when she watched article, it can also cause violent epileptic seizures. The article relates the case of a woman who, upon hearing Hart's voice, suffered "an abnormal electrical discharge in the brain, disorientation, nausea, and headaches." She only got the seizures when she watched Entertainment Tonight Entertainment Tonight, and they stopped as soon as she switched stations.

Doctors call the syndrome reflex epilepsy, and almost anything can trigger it. People have been known to go into fits after seeing Pokemon cartoons, looking at the logo for the 2012 Olympics, playing Nintendo, or hearing the Sean Paul song "Temperature." Although most doctors agree that the last one was merely an appropriate response to the stimulus.

The fact is, you may not even know you have have reflex epilepsy until you run into your trigger. One minute you're asking the friendly clerk at IKEA how to p.r.o.nounce the name of the duvet you've just purchased, the next minute you're flopping on the floor trying to swallow your own tongue. The only way to truly be safe is to keep a piece of leather clenched between your teeth at all times. reflex epilepsy until you run into your trigger. One minute you're asking the friendly clerk at IKEA how to p.r.o.nounce the name of the duvet you've just purchased, the next minute you're flopping on the floor trying to swallow your own tongue. The only way to truly be safe is to keep a piece of leather clenched between your teeth at all times.

3. HULA HOOPS.

That hula hoop collecting cobwebs in your garage may well be the deadliest plastic circle since the O-rings on the Challenger Challenger. In 1992, a Beijing man was hospitalized with a twisted intestine after "playing excessively" with a hula hoop. Chinese papers said that the case was the third in a few weeks and blamed it on a hula hoop craze sweeping China at the time. This also represented the first time the phrase "hula hoop craze" had been printed in a newspaper since the thirties.

Fortunately, the Beijing man was treated successfully and eventually able to return to work (presumably deep in an unstable coal mine). Not so lucky was the Korean woman admitted in 2006 for a perirenal hematoma developed after six months of routine "violent hula hooping." In case you don't know what a perirenal hematoma is, that means the hula hoop made blood come out of her kidneys made blood come out of her kidneys. It looks like you're going to have to somehow resist the lure of violently hula hooping for long periods of time.

If you're starting to think that the only way to avoid death is to shut yourself inside your house, don't worry . . .

2. STAYING SAFELY INDOORS.

Over the last decade or so, a wide range of seemingly unrelated illnesses have started to be attributed to sick building syndrome, which is basically any disease you get just by being inside. Victims have reported everything from headaches and fatigue to hair loss and neurological problems, all tied to starting work at a new building or moving into a new house. Because their symptoms differ so widely, and because "coming into work makes me sick" sounds like the lamest excuse ever, the disease wasn't even really studied until recently.

The current theory is that newer buildings, which are better insulated than old ones, may be too airtight for their own good, trapping toxic ga.s.ses and causing air to stagnate. And that air is filled with all the dust, gas, and molecular detritus left over from the construction process, as well as whatever stray compounds the drying paint and setting concrete decide to contribute. Think of it like a balloon full of poison, except you work inside the balloon, and instead of it being someone's birthday party, your hair is falling out in clumps. Also, most people you tell about your illness call you a crazy liar.

1. THE INTERNET.

Telling people about all the things that will make them sick is one of the Web's primary functions. But only since a recent report in Biologist Biologist, a UK science journal, has it been thought that the Internet could actually suppress your immune system, encourage disease, and speed the growth of tumors. The report cites studies showing that entering the twenty-first century, time spent using electronic media increased, while time spent in actual face-to-face social interaction dropped significantly. This lack of daily human interaction causes your body to slack off and fail to produce as many white blood cells and cytokines (those are good).

While keeping your distance from a bunch of filthy human bacteria might seem like a good thing, your immune system actually needs the activity. After months spent sitting alone, surfing p.o.r.n, your body's natural defense system begins to atrophy.

So really, it's not the Internet that's making you sick; it's the crus.h.i.+ng, crus.h.i.+ng loneliness. If you want to stay healthy, don't waste your time reading books or browsing the supremely addictive Cracked.com website. Go out and get some exercise. But before you do that, you might want to turn to the next section to learn about all the ways exercise can kill you too. website. Go out and get some exercise. But before you do that, you might want to turn to the next section to learn about all the ways exercise can kill you too.

FOUR THINGS YOUR MOM SAID WERE HEALTHY THAT CAN KILL YOU.

EVERYONE knows that fad diets aren't to be trusted. But there are a few simple rules that seem never to go out of style. Exercise like a madman, hit the four food groups, get eight hours of sleep at night, and avoid stuff that's high in fat. Do all those things and you'll be well on your way to . . . a premature death. Yep, the ABCs of healthy living lead directly to an early grave. And we've known it for years. knows that fad diets aren't to be trusted. But there are a few simple rules that seem never to go out of style. Exercise like a madman, hit the four food groups, get eight hours of sleep at night, and avoid stuff that's high in fat. Do all those things and you'll be well on your way to . . . a premature death. Yep, the ABCs of healthy living lead directly to an early grave. And we've known it for years.

4. EXERCISING.

Exercise is good for you. Exercise is hard. Therefore the more you exercise, the better off your body will be, right? There's no better example of this line of reasoning than the marathon, which is named for the legendary Greek messenger who ran 26.2 miles from a battle in Marathon to Athens, announced to the general a.s.sembly, "We won," and promptly dropped dead.

Ignoring the cautionary-tale shape to that story arc, the modern fitness movement made the recreation of the mythical death sprint their de facto symbol of peak physical condition (the ancient Greco-Roman sports of nude wrestling and lion fighting were presumably dismissed as too gay and too cruel to animals, respectively). And while it's true that only the fit can possibly handle such a distance, it turns out it's not necessarily good for the smug b.a.s.t.a.r.ds.

Running a marathon is, on balance, bad for your muscles, your immune system, and even your heart. It's so traumatic that your body begins leaking injury-signaling enzymes. In an interview with Men's Health Men's Health, Dr. Arthur Siegel said, "Your body doesn't know whether you've run a marathon . . . or been hit by a truck." Siegel's the director of internal medicine at Harvard's McLean hospital, who ran twenty marathons before he was convinced to hang up his ridiculous short shorts by his research and all the heart attacks he kept seeing at the marathons he ran. Yes, heart attacks. It happens about a dozen times a year. Runners' hearts give out or they go into complete renal failure. After hours of extensive research, we have it on good authority that doing anything to the point that your organs shut down is generally a bad thing.

However, because our culture tends to view exercise as the physiological equivalent of putting money into your 401(k), marathon runners have been known to ignore their body's "you're G.o.dd.a.m.ned killing us" message until they're doing a horrifyingly faithful recreation of the first marathon ever.

The truth is that, like most things, exercise should be practiced in moderation. As Spiegel advises in the article, you're probably better off training for a marathon and then not running it. Of course, that won't prove to the world that you're a bigger bada.s.s than that Greek messenger.

3. HALF OF THE FOUR MAJOR FOOD GROUPS.

Back in 1977, Senator George McGovern and the Senate Select Committee on Nutrition (SSCON) were asked to figure out why so many Americans were showing up at hospitals with the muscle definition (and often the heart rates) of a Jell-O ca.s.serole. Undertaking the most comprehensive study of American dietary habits in history, the SSCON revealed that, despite America's unwavering commitment to lard-a.s.sed heart abuse, rates of obesity, diabetes, and heart disease briefly dipped during World War II. After rigorous lab experiments determined that you couldn't n.a.z.i hunt your way to low cholesterol, the committee arrived at a more practical explanation: meat and dairy rations. America got healthier during WWII because they weren't allowed to eat all the beef and cheese they could fit their mouths around.

Figuring that some self-imposed rationing might do some good, the committee drafted a report that urged Americans to "cut red meat and dairy intake drastically." As bad as that news was for American taste buds, it was worse for cattle farmers. Since 1955, they'd been making obscene amounts of money selling the half of the USDA's "four essential food groups" that contained cheeseburgers and milk shakes. Luckily for future manufacturers of scoop-'n'-eat cheesecake and muumuus, by the time the SSCON released their report, they'd made enough money to hire an army of lobbyists. Soon after releasing the report, committee members were told it would need some revisions if they wanted to keep their jobs.

Doing what politicians do best, the SSCON caved. The clear and direct "reduce consumption of meat" became, "Choose meats, poultry and fish that will reduce saturated-fat intake." To ensure that no other senators got any funny ideas about making Americans skinny, the meat and dairy industries spent millions to ensure McGovern's a.s.s got kicked to the curb in the very next election. American waistlines continued expanding, life spans continued shrinking, and n.o.body even dreamed of p.i.s.sing off cattle ranchers ever again.

2. GETTING EIGHT HOURS OF SLEEP EVERY NIGHT.

If there's one lie that's ingrained into America's youth even earlier than "drinking milk turns you into a muscle-bound s.h.i.+t wrecker," it's the idea that you need eight hours of sleep each night. The bedtimes of children and the schedules of adults are structured around this one easy-to-remember bodily mandate. For years, it's been dividing weekdays into three convenient eight-hour chunks of work, relaxation, and sleep.

Dr. Daniel Kripke of the University of California, San Diego, conducted a sleep study that tracked adults from the time they were old enough to set their own bedtime to the time they took a permanent nap in the dirt. The study found that seven hours of sleep seems to be the "golden time" for maximum health. Those who got less than seven hours saw slight decreases in life span. The ones who got the magic number of eight hours? They were, on average, even worse off even worse off. Despite what your parents told you, Kripke found that eight hours is the duration at which sleep turns from "healthy and relaxing" to "slowest form of suicide imaginable."

Before you start pet.i.tioning your local representative to draft laws banning comfortable beds, smooth jazz, and the writing of Immanuel Kant (for the children!), the studies didn't show that seven hours is the perfect length of sleep for everyone. Like anything involving the human brain, sleep is way too complicated for blanket rules. The problem, according to Kripke, is that people who naturally sleep less than eight hours a night think they're not getting enough sleep. That's why sleeping pills do such a robust business despite health risks that he puts on level with smoking cigarettes. People who need less than eight hours think they have to force their bodies across an arbitrary finish line their parents invented.

So the next time you're lying awake in bed, worried that you're now seven hours and forty-eight minutes away from the alarm, just remember, eight hours is just something your parents made up because they wanted some alone time to have filthy s.e.x on the couch where you grew up watching TV.

Or maybe just count sheep.

1. THE G.o.dd.a.m.n FOOD PYRAMID.

In 1992, the government decided to take another run at America's rampant a.s.s jigglery, this time designing an official info graphic that showed how many servings of different food groups you should get in a day. Just as the four food groups had improved on 1943's Basic Seven, which actually included b.u.t.ter b.u.t.ter as its own group, the food pyramid took a few steps in the right direction. For instance, it separated fruits and vegetables into their own categories and suggested that both were more essential than the cheese and burger groups. The USDA even created a villain, the tiny tip of the pyramid, fats and oils, which Americans were advised to use sparingly. Having outlined its complex nutritional morality play, the USDA dusted off its hands, sat back, and watched childhood obesity rise every year since. as its own group, the food pyramid took a few steps in the right direction. For instance, it separated fruits and vegetables into their own categories and suggested that both were more essential than the cheese and burger groups. The USDA even created a villain, the tiny tip of the pyramid, fats and oils, which Americans were advised to use sparingly. Having outlined its complex nutritional morality play, the USDA dusted off its hands, sat back, and watched childhood obesity rise every year since.

Again, the government had suffered from a crisis of testicular fort.i.tude. Rather than suggesting that anyone eat less of anything, which could hurt the $500 billion food industry, the pyramid suggested that you eat bad foods less frequently relative to relative to how many good foods you eat. It also followed the SSCON's tradition of blaming the word how many good foods you eat. It also followed the SSCON's tradition of blaming the word fats fats rather than anything you might recognize from your grocery list. Food manufacturers responded by flooding the market with chips and cookies chemically engineered to be "low in fat," giving Americans the green light to eat their way skinny. rather than anything you might recognize from your grocery list. Food manufacturers responded by flooding the market with chips and cookies chemically engineered to be "low in fat," giving Americans the green light to eat their way skinny.

Of course, it wasn't all all on "the man." The chart gave our fat a.s.ses too much wiggle room. Choosing from the items listed in each section, you could eat three cheeseburgers, down two gla.s.ses of OJ, three servings of fries (cooked in McDonald's new low-fat lard!), a box of Lucky Charms, and go to bed telling your body it could thank you on your hundredth birthday. on "the man." The chart gave our fat a.s.ses too much wiggle room. Choosing from the items listed in each section, you could eat three cheeseburgers, down two gla.s.ses of OJ, three servings of fries (cooked in McDonald's new low-fat lard!), a box of Lucky Charms, and go to bed telling your body it could thank you on your hundredth birthday.

As for those new chemically engineered low-fat miracle foods, studies show no evidence that they have any effect on heart or overall body health. Eleftheria Maratos-Flier, director of obesity research at Harvard's Joslin Diabetes Center says, "For a large percentage of the population, perhaps 30 to 40 percent, low-fat diets are counterproductive. They have the paradoxical effect of making people gain weight."

Nutritionists hold out hope that we might turn a corner in the next fifteen years though, when the costs of airlifting children to school pa.s.ses the $500 billion mark.

THE GRUESOME ORIGINS OF FIVE POPULAR FAIRY TALES.

FAIRY tales weren't always for kids. Back when these stories were first told in the taverns of medieval villages, there were very few kids present. These were racy, violent parables to distract peasants after a hard day's dirt farming, and some of them made tales weren't always for kids. Back when these stories were first told in the taverns of medieval villages, there were very few kids present. These were racy, violent parables to distract peasants after a hard day's dirt farming, and some of them made Hostel Hostel look like, well, kid's stuff. look like, well, kid's stuff.

5. LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD: INTERSPECIES s.e.x PLAY, CANNIBALISM.

The version you know On her way to her grandmother's, Little Red Riding Hood meets the Big Bad Wolf and stupidly tells him where she's going. He gets there first, eats Grandma, puts on her dress, and waits for Red.

She gets there, they do the back-and-forth about what big teeth he has, and he eats her. Then, a pa.s.sing woodsman comes and cuts Red and Grandma out of the wolf, saving the day.

What got changed Like many fairy tales, the modern version of "Little Red Riding Hood" comes from Frenchman Charles Perrault's seventeenth-century Mother Goose tales. While Perrault collected and retold the folktales for children, he wasn't afraid to straight-up kill some b.i.t.c.hes to make a point.

The big thing that changed about this one since Perrault's version is the ending. That woodsman showing up seemed a little like a third-act movie rewrite due to bad test screening, didn't it?

In Perrault's version of the story, Red and her grandmother are dead. The. G.o.dd.a.m.n. End.

Perrault's was the PG version of the tale he'd probably heard as a boy. According to a collection of oral folktales from the Middle Ages, the earlier versions liked to spice up the s.e.xual undertones, having Red catch on to the wolf and perform a striptease while he's lying in bed dressed as her grandmother before running away while he's "distracted" (note to any young girls: If you are ever abducted and menaced by someone, do not do this! do not do this!).

Wait, it gets worse. In some of the early folktales, the Wolf dissects Grandmother, then invites Red in for a meal of her flesh, Hannibal Lecter-style.

Sweet dreams!

4. SNOW WHITE: PRINCE PEDOPHILE, MORE CANNIBALISM.

The version you know Evil stepmom hates that her daughter is prettier than her, so she tells one of her men to take her out to the woods, kill her, and bring back her heart as proof. He can't follow through, so he tells her to run away.

Snow White flees and falls in with seven dwarves. The stepmom finds out and sneaks her a poison apple. Snow goes into a coma until a handsome prince rescues her and they live happily ever after.

What got changed In the Disney film, the wicked stepmother winds up dead, so that's already pretty hard-core. It's got nothing on the German Grimm brothers, who wrote over a hundred years after Perrault and are probably the second most popular source for modern fairy tales. In their version, the stepmother is tortured by being forced to wear red-hot iron shoes and made to dance until she falls down dead.

The issue of Snow's actual age is a point of contention as well. The Grimms explicitly refer to her as being seven years old when the story starts, and while there's no firm indication of how much time has pa.s.sed, it can't be more than a couple of years. So unless that's an eight-year-old prince who comes along and rescues Snow, we're backing away from this one.

The biggest thing we cut out of the Grimms' version, and the bloodiest, is the stepmom's unusual eating habits. Namely, when she asks her guy to bring back the heart of Snow White, she isn't just after proof that the girl is dead. She wants to eat it. Depending on the version of the story, the stepmother asks for Snow's liver, lungs, intestines, or pretty much every other major internal organ, up to and including a bottle of Snow's blood stoppered with her toe.

3. RUMPELSTILTSKIN: DISMEMBERMENT, DEAD TODDLERS.

The version you know The king sentences a beautiful woman to be executed in three days unless she can follow through on her father's claim that she can spin straw into gold (the legal system back then took a much harsher stance on ridiculous bulls.h.i.+t). Luckily, a gnome shows up and offers to spin gold in exchange for her firstborn child. She accepts, the gnome spins her gold, and the king is so impressed that he decides to marry her.

The king and his new queen have a son, and the little gnome shows up demanding the boy unless the queen can guess his name in three days. She tries everything but comes up short, until a pa.s.sing woodsman overhears the gnome bragging about how he's so clever that no one will guess his name is Rumpelstiltskin. The woodsman immediately tells the queen, who springs it on Rumpelstiltskin, who's so p.i.s.sed off that he throws a tantrum and runs away, presumably to ply his poorly thought-out scam in another town.

What got changed In the Grimm brothers' version, the little man is so p.i.s.sed off that he stamps the floor in his little hissy fit and gets stuck. And then he pulls so hard to free himself that he tears himself in half. Now, if our names were Rumpelstiltskin and some pretty girl told the whole d.a.m.n room, we'd be p.i.s.sed too, but we don't think we'd get dismemberment-angry.

In the early folktales on which the Grimm version was based, Rumpelstiltskin launches himself at the girl in a rage and gets stuck, um, in her lady parts. Like a gynecological "Humpty Dumpty," the palace guards have to come and pull him out, which must have made for some awkward looks afterward.

Also, in a depressingly large number of the early versions the child is killed anyway, either by Rumpelstiltskin himself or the guards. They weren't big on happy endings in the Dark Ages.

2. SLEEPING BEAUTY: COMA s.e.x.

The version you know "Sleeping Beauty" is the story of a young princess who is cursed by an evil witch so that she will p.r.i.c.k her finger on a spindle and die on her fifteenth birthday. Fortunately, a nonevil old lady finds out and tempers the curse-the princess won't die, she'll just fall asleep for a hundred years.

Of course the king orders all spindles burned, plunging the kingdom into a fas.h.i.+on nightmare, but with the inevitability of fairy-tale logic bearing down on her, the princess manages to find the one working spindle in the kingdom and p.r.i.c.ks her finger on her fifteenth birthday. She falls asleep for a hundred years, until a das.h.i.+ng young prince comes along in timely fas.h.i.+on and kisses her, breaking the spell.

What got changed Seventeenth-century Italian poet and collector of fairy tales Giambattista Basile wrote an early version in which the princess instead gets a piece of flax caught under her fingernail, which puts her to sleep. This might seem like a small difference but stick around.

Basile's version then has the prince who finds the sleeping princess think she's so d.a.m.n beautiful that he just goes ahead and has his way with her right then and there, while she's still comatose.

If that's not disturbing enough, the Rohypnol-style coupling leads to a pregnancy, and the princess gives birth to twins, all while asleep. One of the babies, seeking Momma's milk, sucks on her finger and dislodges the flax, waking her, at which point we imagine she had a few questions.

1. CINDERELLA: MUTILATION, s.e.x, MORE MUTILATION.

The version you know You all know it: The stepmother and stepsisters hate beautiful Cinderella and make her work all day. One day a fairy G.o.dmother shows up and gives Cinderella pretty clothes and a pumpkin coach and sends her to the ball where she falls in love with the prince.

But at the stroke of midnight it all ends, and she runs home, leaving only her gla.s.s slipper behind. The prince searches the land, finds Cinderella, the shoe fits, and they live happily ever after.

What got changed Everyone seemed to have a version of this one. A famous difference in many of the stories is the gla.s.s slipper. Authorities on fairy tales (whom you tend not to see at parties) disagree about whether Perrault's slipper was made of gla.s.s or fur, as the words in French (verre and and vair vair) are p.r.o.nounced almost identically. It's kind of important, because if the prince was wandering the land looking for a lady with the perfect "fur slipper," well, it doesn't take Freud to figure that one out. Suddenly the prince doesn't look so n.o.ble.

One thing Perrault left out that the Grimms delighted in putting back was the violence. The sisters, desperate to fit into the slipper, mutilate their own feet, cutting off their toes and heels in exquisite Germanic detail. When the prince eventually realizes that Cinderella is the one for him, birds peck out the sisters' and mother's eyes for their wickedness.

You can probably understand why Disney went with Perrault's ending for its adaptation.

FIVE HORRIFYING FOOD ADDITIVES YOU'VE PROBABLY EATEN TODAY DECIPHERING food labels is tricky business. They're filled with lots of multisyllabic words that border on being impossible to p.r.o.nounce, chemicals that sound like they could kill you just by touching them, and much, much worse. Read on, unless you've eaten recently. food labels is tricky business. They're filled with lots of multisyllabic words that border on being impossible to p.r.o.nounce, chemicals that sound like they could kill you just by touching them, and much, much worse. Read on, unless you've eaten recently.

5. Sh.e.l.lAC.

Most everyone is familiar with sh.e.l.lac as a wood-finis.h.i.+ng product. It's often used to give furniture, guitars, and even AK-47's that special s.h.i.+ne. But did you know that it is also commonly used as a food additive? Yep, that's why those jelly beans you gorge on every Easter are so s.h.i.+ny.

But what exactly is sh.e.l.lac?

Are you sure you want to know?

Sh.e.l.lac is derived from the excretions of an insect, Kerria lacca Kerria lacca, most commonly found in the forests of Thailand. Kerria lacca Kerria lacca uses the slime as a means to stick to the trees on which it lives. Candy makers then come along and harvest the uses the slime as a means to stick to the trees on which it lives. Candy makers then come along and harvest the Kerria lacca Kerria lacca excretion by sc.r.a.ping it right off the tree. Unfortunately for you and your future enjoyment of s.h.i.+ny candies, this leaves little room for quality control measures to guarantee that the insects aren't scooped up as well. excretion by sc.r.a.ping it right off the tree. Unfortunately for you and your future enjoyment of s.h.i.+ny candies, this leaves little room for quality control measures to guarantee that the insects aren't scooped up as well.

Once that happens, and it almost always does, the insects simply become part of the sh.e.l.lac-making process. And the candy-making process. And the candy-eating process.

Don't eat candy? That's OK: You're probably eating bugs too. During the cleaning process, apples lose their natural s.h.i.+ne. Care to guess how it's restored?

If all of this is making you a bit queasy, we understand. It's not every day that you find out you've been celebrating the resurrection of Jesus by consuming handfuls of insect-infused treats your entire life. But before you head to the medicine cabinet, consider this. That pill you want to take to quell your nausea? It didn't get s.h.i.+ny on its own.

4. BONE CHAR.

The sugar you put on your cereal in the morning didn't start out white. It's naturally brown-a color the food industry apparently decided was undesirable. To make their product more acceptable to whitey, sugar companies use a filtering process to strip it of its color. In some cases, the process involves boring sciency words like ions ions and such. But sugar derived from sugarcane (about a quarter of the sugar in the United States) goes through a . . . different process. and such. But sugar derived from sugarcane (about a quarter of the sugar in the United States) goes through a . . . different process.

Domino, the largest sugar producer in America, uses something called bone char to filter impurities from its sugar. Bone char is produced using the bones of cows from India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan that have died from "natural causes," as opposed to cows who forget to wear a helmet when riding their motorcycles.

The bones are bleached in the sun and sold to marketers who then sell them to the U.S. sugar industry. Sugar companies then heat the bones until charred, at which point they are used to filter the sugar that keeps you fat and happy.

We don't know by what alchemy this method purifies the sugar, but since they go out of their way to use ground-up cow bones from India-a country where that animal is often considered sacred-we have to a.s.sume Satan is involved.

3. CARMINE.

Carmine can also be identified on food labels as crimson lake, cochineal, Natural Red 4, CI 75470, or E120. We mention that because we're guessing you'll want to check for it after reading this.

If you're eating something red right now, or have recently, you're probably eating carmine, which is ground-up cochineal insects-essentially mashed red beetles. Because you're dying to know more, the insects are killed by exposure to heat or immersion in hot water and then dried. Because the female abdominal region that houses the fertilized eggs contains the most carmine, it is separated from the rest of the body, ground into a powder, and cooked at high temperatures to extract the maximum amount of color.

Then it's added to that yogurt you ate this morning while lording your health consciousness over the guy in the cubicle next to you who had an Egg Mcm.u.f.fin.

Food manufacturers are well aware that word has gotten out about exactly what carmine is and that people are less than crazy about it. So a number of crafty manufacturers have resorted to labeling it not as carmine but instead as "natural color," thereby guaranteeing you'll never really know for sure if your cherry ice cream contains the USDA recommended amount of creepy crawlers.

Hey, speaking of that . . .