THINGS WE WISH WE DIDN'T KNOW
                         ...1992 Farmers Almanac


     
     Do you know that right now, at this second, hundreds of follicle mites 
are living beneath the hair of your eyelashes? They're a little like fleas, 
only they're microscopic and they don't jump as high. Aren't you glad you know 
now? There's nothing you can do about it, either.

     Insects can be a lot of fun.  There's so much that people don't know!
For instance, did you know that common houseflies have taste buds in their 
feet? If they land on something that has a high sugar content, they simply 
extend their mouth parts and regurgitate to liquefy the food so it can be 
absorbed.  Isn't that great? Did you ever think of that while you were shooing
a fly off your hot dog roll?

     There are all kinds of things people would probably rather not know.  
Take that hot dog. If it's like most hot dogs, it contains residues of more 
than 100 pesticides--many of them carcinogens and mutagens and neurotoxins and 
agents of liver failure. Based on a standard government formula for assessing 
risks, it is estimated that 1032 of the 43 million Americans who regularly eat 
hot dogs will develop cancer from the pesticides in this food alone.

     We have a way of overlooking certain facts that don't conform to our 
idealized images.  After all, if the all-American hot dog is actually bad for 
us, what other foundation stones might be loose? Truth is, the truth can be 
hard to take sometimes. Perhaps we can let discrepancies among a few of our 
historical and cultural icons slide. So what if the Pilgrims didn't really land 
at Plymouth Rock; and who cares if George Washington never threw a dollar 
across the Potomac? But when it comes to the natural world we live in, it's 
hard to face the facts. For instance: For 100 days each year, you can't even 
see across the venerable Grand Canyon because the air above it is so polluted. 

     When it comes to water pollution, Toronto photography student Jeremy 
Lynch tries to make the best of things. He has successfully developed 
photographic film in the chemical-laden waters of Lake Ontario, the Hudson 
River and Love Canal. (Surprised?)  You shouldn't be. After all, a single 
gallon of spilled gasoline can contaminate up to 750,000 gallons of 
groundwater.

     And then, there's solid waste disposal. On an average day, the U.S. egg 
industry discards 550,000 live male chicks. (What do they do with them?)

     In 1990, one out of every $11 spend on food in the United States paid for  
packaging---more than the net income of the farmers who produced the food! 
Think about the volume of orange-juice containers used up in New York City 
every morning. It would save several tons of packaging if all those people 
squeezed their own juice from fresh oranges--but then again, the peels--in 
just one day would weigh about 107,000 tons! And what would they do with that?

     Humans have a strange fascination for other animals. (Perhaps because we
differ from apes in one only one percent of out genetic makeup.) It's such a 
fine line that the Enviromental Protection Agency has determined certain 
acceptable levels of insect parts and animal waste in our food--an average of 
two maggots per 17.5 ounce can of tomatoes, say, or 35 fruit fly eggs per 
ounce of golden raisins. You can have one live insect in each of two 
containers of green coffee beans or two dead bugs in five containers. Or one 
rodent hair in 100 grams of chocolate. You know what the best part is? You've 
already eaten it!

     To be fair, insects actually add protein and other nutritional value to 
the food in which ther happen to appear.  The same insects that make Americans 
blanch are crunchy delicacies in other countries. Some etomologists have 
pointed out that if the EPA would just relax and double the limits, farmers 
could drastically reduce their use of pesticides. 

     Finally, we come nearly full circle, back to mites. Not follicle mites, 
but dust mites. Millions of them, microscopic and right in your own home. 
Think about it when you go to bed. Close your eyes, and know that as many as 
250,000 of them can fly around in one gram of house dust, filling the air with 
their tiny, dust-mite fecal pellets.

     Breathe deeply. Sleep well.

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Another text file from Stonehenge BBS [415] 479-8328     
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