Jenn recently told me about curcumin/turmeric, and how people in India eat lots of that stuff and have less arthritis than we do here. I thought it sounded suspect so I looked it up and yup, no hard data suggesting any link between curcumin/turmeric and anti-inflammatory properties.
Same thing with ginger. Everyone raves about using ginger for all kinds of “whatever ales you” shit, but there is no evidence it actually soothes your sore tummy (I hate that word).
Same with glucosamine and chondroitin. No evidence it helps with joint pain.
And yet, tons of people in North America still buy all that stuff for those very purposes. It bothers me because we frequently shit on the Chinese for using bear bladders and paws for erectile dysfunction or whatever the fuck they believe those things do, but we hold similar beliefs in disproven things. And similarly, glucosamine and chondroitin are often harvested from a variety of creatures: cows, pigs, sharks, fish, birds, shellfish. Is that practice really that different from killing bears? The only way I’m ok with any animal slaughter is if
- the animals get to live a happy, social, cage-free, natural (or close to it) life, and
- the entire animal is used
and I doubt those requirements are met in 99.9% of any industrial farming situation.
But ethical shit aside, I just think it’s absurd that we say “boy, those Chinese are dumb and superstitious,” while gobbling up our own dumb and superstitious supplements.
I think humans are generally pretty stupid no matter where they are from.
crimson highway 