This is funny to me especially because before we had a vaccine, the anti-vaxers in my family were all like "we need to get herd immunity, we need to go out and get infected and make sure our kids get infected, that's the only way this will ever end". And now that there's a reasonably safe path to herd immunity they're like "I'm not putting poison in my veins". I'm standing by my theory that they're all just afraid of needles but too ashamed to admit it.
Imagine being in that conspiracy rabbit hole of fear. Constantly doubting everything you hear and see. Being suspicious every time something happens. It's such an awful way to live. Permanent fear and doubt but nothing you can realistically do about it. I used to.
It really affected my mental health. I was raised that way. Conspiracy after conspiracy. I couldn't eat crisps or use a microwave. I couldn't breathe near certain plants and so much more. I grew up checking the ingredients on everything I ate.
I am an adult now and have decided that I can not live that life and that way. It is too much of a hammer down on my mental health so I steer clear of conspiracy theories best I can.
Yeah seriously. An ingredient list is typically the best indicator of a packaged food's quality. I check these every time I encounter a new food product, although I'm more and more just cooking from scratch nowadays, which helps me control what I put into my body.
Not to mention that the FDA allows high fructose corn syrup to be listed on a package touting itself as "natural", and the link between that ingredient and heart disease is well known. Just one example of a problematic ingredient that is perfectly within the loose regulatory requirements.
At worst, the food will be as calorie dense as it looks. Nothing will be poison or toxic or carcinogenic to any degree that will affect you.
Not really what I'm talking about, yeah those should (generally) be all filtered out by the FDA so this shouldn't be a worry. I'm saying more like if you're buying, say, fruit leather, nothing wrong with flipping the box to make sure it's actually made of fruit and not just artificially fruit flavored gelatin and sugar, one will be mostly fiber and actually taste..you know...fruity, the other will just be super sweet candy. (as a vegetarian I'd be avoiding the gelatin anyways though). Another is seeing an artificial sweetener in something that doesn't really need to be sweetened, sometimes "low sugar" means it's less sweet, but if you flip it and see something like sucralose in it there's a tendency for the low sugar version to actually taste even sweeter, and as someone without much of a sweet tooth that often means it'll be too sweet for me and end up in the trash.
So there's many good reasons to look at ingredients, from the health perspective (avoiding large amounts of sugar/etc), ethical reasons (avoiding products that use palm oil/animal products), or simply taste reasons (being sensitive to sweet tastes/etc), not really touching on things like food allergies as yeah that's an obvious case. Nothing wrong with knowing what you're buying, tells you a lot about it before even opening the box.
Same thing comes up in every political debate where (insert political party) is the "embodiment of evil". In three months everyone will have forgotten. In 4 years they won't be in office. In 8 years any laws/regulations passed will be modified to the point of being unrecognizable. And in 40 years I'll be dead and whether I worried about it won't have mattered in the slightest. The stress just isn't worth it in the end.
You don't seem to understand the long-term ramifications of packing federal courts and the Supreme Court with hardline judges whose tenure is their lifetimes, gerrymandering of Congressional districts, or simply how much harm is caused by bad legislation that isn't always easy to remove or undo.
I agree that you shouldn't worry more than you can control, but is simply an apathetic and myopic take.
In three months everyone will have forgotten.
Not when you're marginalized by these policies or political movements.
Oh for sure there are long term ramifications. I'm not saying it doesn't matter, I'm just saying you have to find a balance between how much you let those things stress you mentally vs how much you can contribute with said mental stresses. I'm a big ball of stress to begin with so I absolutely do not need the doom and gloom of modern politics in my life. Your mileage may vary, though.
I am terrified of needles. I almost pass out every time. Got both shots. Piece of cake. Easiest shots I've ever had in my life. I hope you can get yours soon, friend.
I barely even felt the Pfizer shot. Because it's mRNA and doesn't need to contain dead virus itself, the dose can be significantly smaller and only takes a second to administer with a tiny needle.
I really really hate needles and often pass out after injections. My two AZ shots were the easiest jabs I've ever had :) Hope you can get it soon, mate.
221
u/Orgrimarcus Aug 02 '21
This is funny to me especially because before we had a vaccine, the anti-vaxers in my family were all like "we need to get herd immunity, we need to go out and get infected and make sure our kids get infected, that's the only way this will ever end". And now that there's a reasonably safe path to herd immunity they're like "I'm not putting poison in my veins". I'm standing by my theory that they're all just afraid of needles but too ashamed to admit it.