wake me if you're out there

pop health science is so annoying bc it'll be like "did you know? eating strawberries will give you mega cancer" and you're like pfft whatever begone influencer. but sometimes then you'll see a reasonably credible article like "Study Shows Possible Link Between Strawberries and Mega Cancer" and you're not usually the type to follow that kind of thing religiously but idk maybe you should consider not eating strawberries? but then there's another article saying "Strawberry/Mega Cancer Study Debunked" and it turns out the original study had a sample size of 3 and was funded by Big Blueberry, and strawberries may have a small connection to mega cancer but only if you are genetically predisposed to mega cancer and eat 50 strawberries every day. so you return to your strawberry eating life. but whenever you eat strawberries in public someone tells you about the mega cancer.

Kinda feels like we're scraping the bottom of the barrel for stuff to be nostalgic about but okay.

maybe it’s just the growing-up-with-undiagnosed-severe-anxiety-&-obsessive-compulsive-disorder-mother-figures in me, but any time there’s any sort of public health risk, i get real tired of hearing everyone scream and cry and throw away all their food/chew out their relatives if they eat anything “””unsafe.””” a recall could not mention your state at all and your mom/grabdma would be calling you 18+ times leaving voice messages screaming at you to throw away all your peanut butter even if you bought it three months ago before the recall even happened. and you’ve eaten it already. and felt fine.

“is it safe to eat grapes right now!!!???!!!” i don’t know. no one can give you that answer. the high likelihood is yeah, they’re probably fine. it’s a country with hundreds of millions of people, and while statistically a large increase of cases is of course a concern to note, the likelihood that YOU, anxious woman reading this, is with 100% certainty going to contract the plague if you don’t immediately throw out all suspect food items and scream at your relatives to do the same? probably not that high, actually. most likely all of this is to suit the paranoid goblin in your head that hates you.

and also. like. the grapes could have not been safe the last 300 times you bought them. until you get sick, you really have no clue. i understand this is a scary reality to consider. but part of being an adult is acknowledging & coming to accept that life is full of risk. any time you get into a car you COULD get into a car wreck & die. any time you go into the grocery someone COULD come and shoot the place up. your grapes COULD give you a parasite that from what we’ve heard is not excessively dangerous unless you’re immunocompromised but certainly sounds unpleasant & even serious to deal with. but uh. most likely, none of it is going to happen. and if it does, it is not your FAULT because you didn’t somehow prevent it, and it is not your JOB to be clairvoyant and eliminate all risk. which isn’t possible. but boy, in the meantime, you’re kind of exhausting to be around.

maybe it’s just the growing-up-with-undiagnosed-severe-anxiety-&-obsessive-compulsive-disorder-mother-figures in me, but any time there’s any sort of public health risk, i get real tired of hearing everyone scream and cry and throw away all their food/chew out their relatives if they eat anything “””unsafe.””” a recall could not mention your state at all and your mom/grabdma would be calling you 18+ times leaving voice messages screaming at you to throw away all your peanut butter even if you bought it three months ago before the recall even happened. and you’ve eaten it already. and felt fine.

“is it safe to eat grapes right now!!!???!!!” i don’t know. no one can give you that answer. the high likelihood is yeah, they’re probably fine. it’s a country with hundreds of millions of people, and while statistically a large increase of cases is of course a concern to note, the likelihood that YOU, anxious woman reading this, is with 100% certainty going to contract the plague if you don’t immediately throw out all suspect food items and scream at your relatives to do the same? probably not that high, actually. most likely all of this is to suit the paranoid goblin in your head that hates you.