Beech Tree News Network

“You don’t need to be giving your dog bacon,” my sister-in-law told me on my last visit to Alabama.
“Oh, really,” I said
“I read the study last week,” she continued, “And I can’t remember why you’re not supposed to give them bacon, but it made sense when I read it.”
“I wish you’d told me this when Lady was still around,” I said, referring to Garey’s bird dog who lived to be 17—119 in people years—on a steady diet of left-over pork products.  “She’d probably still be out there chasing birds.”
    I stopped putting much stock in scientific studies after watching my mom give up eggs for years because of a study that showed they were high in bad cholesterol, only to watch the reversal of information, years later, proclaiming them high in good cholesterol.  I’m still waiting for the study that reveals salt is good for you.  My kids will occasionally fuss at me for the amount of salt I put on my food.  I tell them salt has been used as a natural preservative for centuries, and I’m going to save them a ton of money on funeral costs because they won’t have to use as much embalming fluid.
    One of my favorite reads at the end of each year is a publication called “Wastebook.”  It is compiled by Senator Tom Coburn (R-Oklahoma), and deals with the most wasteful government programs of the year.  You can read the top eight for 2014 on the website www.thefederalist.com.  Some of my personal favorites are as follows:
1.    $171,000 to study how monkeys gamble
2.    $856,000 to film mountain lions running on treadmills.  One of the scientists involved in the study said it took eight months of training before the cats were “comfortable on the treadmill.”  (That’s remarkable in my book.   I’ve run on tread mills for years and still don’t find them comfortable.)
3.    $50,000 to choreograph a laser guided synchronized swim team of sea monkeys.  (I wish I could tell you I made that up.)
4.    $387,000 for a study on how Swedish massage affects rabbits after they have exercised.
5.    And my personal favorite--$331,000 to study whether hungry spouses are more likely to stab voodoo dolls, representing their partners, when they are hungry.  Conclusion: “People get prickly when they’re hungry. (They could have garnered the same information for a lot fewer dollars by studying an infant waiting on a bottle at feeding time.)
I realize there have been studies that have benefited people.  One that comes to mind is the realization that pouring water on burned skin is a good thing.  My mother-in-law, Agnes, still carries the scar from an exploding test tube, because her high school science teacher wouldn’t let her wash the acid from her hand after the accident.  It was believed at the time that water would make the burn worse.
    There are other studies that have benefited mankind.  I like the one that encourages you to drink more than two cups of coffee per day, and I am particularly fond of the study that expounds the health benefits of one glass of red wine per day.  (I wonder if I could get the coffee and red wine scientists to reevaluate salt and maybe even the effects of bacon on dogs, while they’re at it.)
    I think my husband, Garey, has the study thing pretty well figured out.  He says, “Studies show if your study doesn’t show anything, you’ll lose your government funding.