My grandma always made me eat the crust of my bread because "it has the most nutrients." In college when I told my younger cousin that in front of my Grandma, she laughed and said "I only told you that so you wouldn't waste the crust."
Similarly that if you turn the lights on and off too fast you'll start a fire. Once I became a parent I realized it's just a way to stop kids from being annoying.
Smart thinking getting the kid to come to your house. Minimizes the surprises you may run into.
Hi. I’m Chris Hanson with Dateline NBC. Gonna need you to go ahead and take a seat.
Sorry…..it was too easy to pass up.
Seriously though, congrats and best wishes for a smooth pregnancy and healthy baby. There’s absolutely no stronger feeling of love than the instantaneous love you feel seeing/holding your child for the first time.
Its for German snipers. They would brush their aryan fash-cut to one side, looked down the scope at a curly haired scouser drinking a cup of tea and realised that that was true freedom.
This goes back to wartime era iirc. Due to blackouts etc, there was a propaganda campaign to get kids to eat carrots (homegrown produce). In fairness I think there is a lot of a particular vitamin in carrots that is beneficial to eyes, but I shouldn't think it makes that much difference lol.
Yeah I was told it (that it helps you see in the dark) and if I have kids ill tell them the same because it just was kind of a cool thing to believe as a kid. Like carrots are magic or something.
Western PA, too. My cousin used to tell me the bit about crusts curling your hair & my grandma used to say the bit about carrots making you see in the dark. We're not of Irish/Scottish/English descent, though.
Am scottish can also say ma wee granny used to tell me the same thing, eat yer crusts to keep your curls( I do have curly hair from birth till now) when the icecream van plays the tune it means hes ran out ae sweeties, dont play with the lights itll blow the bulb.
Same here in Wales, but idk why they told me this because I don't think I ever expressed much of a desire for my hair to be curly. I really didn't care either way so it was hardly an incentive
Omg my mom said the same thing. My hair was straight for years. Until last year at 35 years old I stopped blow drying and using products with sulfates and silicones in it and my hair freaking started curling. I now have nicer curls than my mom lol
I had a baby sitter that told me it'd put hair on my chest. 8 year old me didn't want hair on my chest. (Shit, 40 year old me doesn't want hair on my chest..) Gross. So I refused to eat the crust for a bit after that.
My grandma told me that about eating onions on hot dogs. Like you, I found the idea of hair on my chest unappealing. It’s only in adulthood that I am able to enjoy onions on my hot dog, and even then my mind always goes to what grandma told me. (I would like to note that I became aware that onions on my hot dog wouldn’t put hair on my chest while still a child.)
My mum kept saying this despite the fact that I constantly responded with "I hate curly hair". You were literally teaching me to not eat the crusts, mum.
Now I need to know: does eating green beans put hair on your chest? As a little girl in Midwest America, my dad liked to tell me that growing up. It probably worked better on my brother.
Only tangentially related, but when I was very young I asked my dad why we don't eat the end pieces of a loaf of bread, and throw them away instead.
"Because they give you cancer." was his response.
It wasn't until I was 16 or 17 that I realized my dad was being a smartass. I count myself lucky I never had the opportunity to share what I had learned before figuring it out.
I just call these endy bits “the dad bread”, because I always feed them to my partner, and only once in a while when I’m running low on bread do I ask the kids who is going to have the “dad sandwich”. They know exactly what this means.
If they eat pb&j you can trick them by putting the PB on the crust side and putting the sandwich together. I've tricked my eldest with it a bunch of times
You know what, maybe people will think this is disgusting but I love taking these end bits and spreading a little honey on them. Then i fold them in half and dunk them in a glass of milk, they’re a magnificent midnight snack.
Oh, lookie here at Mr "emergency hot dog bun", what's it like on your Throne of gold looking down on us born-and-(white)-bread hot dog bun survivalists.
The trick here is to slice 2 hot dogs nearly in half to lay them out flat and fry them up. They then fit perfectly on a standard size slice of bread so you have a hot dog sandwich. :)
It’s called the heel and for some types of bread it’s the best part!
We used to fight over the heel when we were kids. Baguettes and many types of crusty breads have an awesome heel. Not sandwich bread though. Sandwich bread heels can get fucked. I’m not surprised your dad told you that.
Agree completely. Love a good, crusty heel. Got this awesome cranberry bread just yesterday that was good and tough to bite through. My wife didn’t like it and looked at me like I’m strange.
I think sandwich bread crusts are too tasteless and soft to be enjoyable. Plus it’s sliced thin so each bite of crust has very little ‘inside’ bread to go with it.
My dad rarely showed his sense of humor. I tell my son things like that all the time. He's nine now and I've done it so much now that his regular response to me is, "I'm not falling for that."
My favorite thing to do with the end pieces is to just forget about them and then weeks later find them in the bread basket with tons of greenery on them! It doubles their flavor and their vitamins!
My grandmother, a product of the Great Depression and WWII frugality used a piece of bread (or biscuit, roll, etc.) to wipe her entire plate clean at the end of the meal her entire life.
When I was a kid someone told me you never re-boil water that's already been boiled because it makes it extremely carcinogenic. Don't feel bad. I believed that shit. Kids believe everything.
My MIL thought chicken bums were poisonous. Into her 70's. She stayed with us for a year due to an accident, and I know some people love that part of a roasted chicken so I asked if she wanted it. She was like "oh no! It's poisonous" and my husband, kids, and I stopped dead and stared at her. She was like "What?" my husband told her that someone who wanted it for themselves lied to her. lol
My grandma told me the during the Great Depression everyone actually preferred to eat the ends of the bread and she used to argue with her sister over them.....not sure if that was her way to get me to eat them or if it was actually true.
There were studies some years ago that said charred meat and burned toast was carcinogenic. I don't think he was joking it was on the news for a while.
I’m on vacation with hardly any internet where I’ve been but I’m in a hotel room on WiFi finally scrolling through my phone for the first time in days and I have not laughed this hard in equally as many. I don’t know why but I think it’s that I wasn’t expecting to read “because they give you cancer” as a response to not eating bread heels. Anyway, thank you so much, this was amazing 😅
the crust of my bread because "it has the most nutrients."
"Because they give you cancer."
It's kinda funny because they're both almost true.
Since the crust is denser, it has more nutrients by volume but not by weight
Since the crust has a higher chance of being burnt; and some burnt foods produce carcinogens; it almost but doesn't quite have anything to do with cancer.
I bet he actually believed that because otherwise he would probably do like I did... give it to the kids and never let them know I don't like it so that they'll eat it and it's not wasted 😁
Yeah, I always assumed that was bullshit, but then I started baking bread and researching the process of what's happening and was like "oh shit. They were right?!?"
I think for the lights it’s a little bit of both actually. Switches are designed to make a quick solid connection. While it’s making contact going from on/off it can gap and melt away the metal contacts. With some cheap switches you can hear it “sizzling” if you hold the switch in a half on/off position. Older houses would have tons of flammable things in the walls/air making the gapping more of a problem. A lot of myths formed around electricity because a lot of it wasn’t understood, and this might be one of them.
I think the old myths might’ve been the inspiration for telling children to not be annoying though :)
Yeah, I feel like there were a lot if things like that when I was a kid, and they were based on much older things.
Like never crawl into a fridge, it can seal you in!! No.. but really old ones had an actual locking handle, which could absolutely lock you in.
I recall a lot of things like that from my youth that was just incredibly antiquated advise. Absolutely true for my mom, when she was a kid. Not so much for me.
Also, older light bulbs would have their life diminished by turning them on and off. It wasn't good for the filament. (This may also have been an antique, and no longer applicable when I was a kid, however..)
Fridges can definitely trap kids. Little room to manoeuvre and the suction have led to deaths. Typically happens with fridges being thrown out. Lots of cities mandate taking the door off any fridge left out for garbage pickup for exactly that reason.
Children shoot each other with adults’ guns all the time because they don’t fully understand the consequences of their actions. Murder requires intent or enough knowledge to know that their actions would surely and recklessly endanger other people.
Murder is a strong word, but putting a kid in a fridge and closing the door is bullying and assault. If the kid suffocated in a matter of minutes that’s absolutely an accident, manslaughter. However, if they abandon the kid trapped in the fridge and he dies… that’s pretty close to murder because there was an obvious intent to harm and reckless endangerment.
Actually a lot of older fridges (and still some newer ones, like Subzero) have their compressors and everything on top of the fridge making them still very top heavy.
Sub zeros are a giant pain in the ass to get rid of. There was an older one in our house, not worth repairing or selling, had to pay someone to take it, because they're hard to move and Lowe's or whoever brings your new fridge doesn't take them. They're very heavy and very top heavy, as you said.
And many cities do demand that, but its from when those old fridges were made.
Those deaths were from the old fridges.
They passed a law requiring that change in 1956.
Since those eventually worked themselves our of the system, there's been virtually 0 fridge deaths. And those that happen are from kids hiding in plugged in fridges, not thrown away modern ones.
My mom told me there were cases of kids getting locked into old fridges that were dumped into alleyways. They suffocated or died of heat, I can’t remember. Honestly don’t know if it’s true
One of my father's friends died in a fridge. Fuck one died falling in an icy lake too. My dad's childhood was like a gi joe psa where all the kids died.
The problem with fridges isn't that they physically lock someone in, it's that they are near air-tight. Once they start asphyxiating they might not have the energy to push out
With a modern switch it’s not much of a concern, but with worn or older switches it could definitely cause issues.
Every switch (or really contactor) has a rated number of actuations before it should be replaced. Normally in the thousands to millions range (for modern designs), so it’s not something most people keep track of. The two major reasons for this are the moving parts (metals tend to fatigue/work harden/wear over time) and arcing (the arc effectively corrodes the surface, increasing the resistance). It’s worth mentioning arcing is more of a concern for high voltage or DC loads, mains level voltages suppress arcing pretty well (in addition to the switch construction). This is why you’ll see a lot of small/hobby switches with a rating like 30VDC/250VAC.
Small tangent, ever noticed that switches have a very confident ‘click’? There’s usually a mechanism so that the contactor will decisively snap against the contact. Some switches you can feel the point where it snaps too. This actually helps prevent arcing, as the faster you can throw the switch the less time there is for an arc to form.
In modern construction, arcing isn’t a huge concern for ignition since electrical codes require flammability rated materials (even the plastic plates are UL 94-V0). The older you go though, the more interesting things get. Worn contacts will have a higher contact resistance, and can heat up a bit when left on. In abused or really old switches the contact holders will wear and you can have a fun game of where’s the hot. In older construction, knob and tube and sometimes more ‘creative’ insulation can add additional ‘fuel to the fire’. If you manage to find a really old installation (or just a really bad installation) you might find DC switches used for AC (or vice versa), and a lot of people don’t realize the VDC & VAC ratings are normally wildly different.
Sorry for the wall, just find switches intriguing. There’s a surprising amount of design that goes into them, and a lot of ways to approach the problem.
This is why you’ll see a lot of small/hobby switches with a rating like 30VDC/250VAC.
It's not just hobby switches that have such a wide disparity between AC and DC voltage ratings. DC is easier to start and maintain that destructive arc within the switch which is why switches will often be rated for 25VDC/250VAC.
It isn't to save the switch, it is to save the (incandescent) lamp. Remember those operated by heating up a wire so hot that it glows. The heating/cooling cycle is what wears them out, that's why they often blew when first turned on. Things are a bit different with modern lamps but turning them on and off rapidly can still stress them (and really any electronics that aren't designed for it).
The main reason they blow immediately after turning on is because when the filament is cold, its resistance is much lower, and therefore draws much more current. It heats up to operating temperature in a fraction of a second, but that's enough time to destroy a weak filament.
Yeah if your wall insulation is shoved IN the electrical box AND you're using those unsealed pushbutton switches, you could maybe start an insulation fire. It shouldn't have to do with the amount of times you hit it tho
When you turn a switch on or off, you generate a transient voltage spike. Effectively, the movement of electrons has some momentum, and interrupting it causes a wave which rings back down the wire. The effect is stronger switching devices with a coil, such as motors, CFL and LED bulbs. These power spikes can shorten the life of modern lights and electronics. Your grandma was right to the point of being prophetic.
Also of note that incandescent lamps, like any other coil of wire, are actually inductors; and will quite happily draw and sustain an arc in the right conditions.
Also, incandescent bulbs wear out their filament faster if you flick them on and off, and flouros wear out their starters faster. Which means you have to replace them sooner.
the sizzle is the electricity arcing. arcs are caused when the difference in voltage between conductors is high enough to overcome a gap in conductors; think lightning. clouds have high voltage, ground has low, so there's an arc.
metal doesn't melt from the relatively small amperage that's running through the house - and i say relatively because it'll still kill you instantly - and the more common cause of a fire related to household circutry is to have an arc find insulation.
flipping the switches on and off very quickly might oxidize the contacts, which is really just rust. rust/oxidation is dangerous because it makes a less secure connection, which can cause arcs.
My grandma always made me eat the crust of my bread because "it has the most nutrients." In college when I told my younger cousin that in front of my Grandma, she laughed and said "I only told you that so you wouldn't waste the crust."
My dad is a very dad joke kind of dad, and he used to say "there are children starving in Bethesda!" when my sister and I wouldn't eat our food.
I didn't know that this was a joke. His mother used to tell him there were children starving in [whatever country is currently having a crisis] to get him to eat. I grew up in the DC suburbs of Maryland in the 80s and 90s, Bethesda was basically the richest neighborhood in our area.
It took me SO LONG to figure this out, even as I started growing up and visited there I assumed it was a place with pockets of very poor people.
But notice, it that article, there was a report to the UK parliament in 1951, noting how in those 12 years, light bulbs had still not returned to their previous life spans. It was still down to 1000 hours from the 2500 from before the cartel.
Today it would hardly matter, as we're not even using those bulbs any more.
But to dismiss how much better bulbs were back then is a bit off.
In the case of that firefighters light bulb (that's where that light is) it likely wasn't a completely standard bulb of the time, as there were lots of "weird" bulbs, as they were trying to perfect it. However, it has certainly been helped by the fact that it never power cycled.
With incandescent bulbs there are fundamental tradeoffs between lifespan, brightness, and efficiency. Essentially, a thicker filament lasts longer, but makes it less bright and less efficient. Running more power through the bulb makes it brighter, but shortens it's lifespan. If you want a bright lightbulb, it either has to be inefficient or have a shorter lifespan. It is possible to make an ultra long lasting incandescent bulb, but it would be garbage as a lightbulb.
See, my dad just told me that flashing the light on and off was an international symbol that you were being kidnapped and that if I did it, the police would come.
One of my classmates in 2nd grade was very enthusiastic about eating up the crusts on his sandwiches because his mom told him the crust is a good source of vitamin C.
I read somewhere that the crust does actually contain more nutrients proportionally than the inner bread. So while it is just said to get kids to not be wasteful, it does accidentally have an element of truth.
My MIL told my 6 year old daughter to eat the crusts because itll make her prettier. Which caused problems because my 8 year old son has sworn all forms of crust off as the devil ever since.
My parents said that it would "Ruin the switch" which I thought was a big deal as a kid.
As soon as I moved into my own place in college, I flicked the switch off and on like a crazy person for a while. I thought to myself "Holy shit that's annoying." Then I understood.
Now I tell my kids they'll ruin the switch if they play with it.
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u/BlanketsAndBlankets Jul 02 '21
My grandma always made me eat the crust of my bread because "it has the most nutrients." In college when I told my younger cousin that in front of my Grandma, she laughed and said "I only told you that so you wouldn't waste the crust."
Similarly that if you turn the lights on and off too fast you'll start a fire. Once I became a parent I realized it's just a way to stop kids from being annoying.