Every decade or so, there is always something trending up as something else is trending down. The love of high waisted shorts returned from the eighties and showed its face again in the past couple years. The need to listen to the local radio stations morning show has ceased now that the Internet radio has taken prevalence, it’s rare that you can go into you first class or the beginning of you’re job and have a normal discussion about the radio because it’s so rare that someone else has been listening.
One fad, that has been pretty prominent for at least the past decade has been this new health craze. At first everyone grew this fear of msg, the sprouted the need for everything to be “green” or organic. In addition, children are more commonly being plagued with lactose, nuts and gluten allergies that keep them from experiencing all of the tasty goodness that previous generations basked in. But what has become the even darker fad? This new message saturation the media telling us to stay away from red meat and the even scarier warning that this red meat may increase our chances of getting cancer…significantly.
Now most Americans are a fan of red meat, and who can blame them? However, to play devils advocate, have we reached the point where we believe everything the media says. Can we fully trust statistics, even when they state that something as minuscule as a couple slices of bacon can increase our chances of contracting cancer by 18%? Or is that just it, do these statistics seem asinine to those of us who are completely aware that we’ve been eating red meat for generations without any prior problems? And why is it so easy for us to question the media and if they have our best at heart, especially when we understand the concept of agenda setting. I personally am at a crossroads when it comes to how I’m going to handle this news. Part of me believes that the livestock being raised now may not be the best, of course we have to check what they eat because that’s all a food chain that ultimately effects us. Yet the other half of me wants to scream in protest and question what the next best food item will be that is apparently the worst.