Living Till Ninety

              This old dude finally got a new primary care physician. After exhaustive tests, the told him he was doing ‘fairly well’ for his age. A little concerned about that comment, he couldn’t resist asking, “Do you think I’ll live to be ninety?” 

              The doctor thought for a while then asked,

Doc: Do you use tobacco or drink alcoholic beverages? 

Dude: Oh no, I’ve never done those things.

Doc: Do you eat things like big steaks and barbequed ribs, sausage etc.? 

Dude: Nope, I’ve heard that all ‘red meat’ is very unhealthy! 

Doc: Do you gamble, drive fast cars, or fool around with women? 

Dude: No, I’ve never done any of those things either. 

Doc: Then tell me, Sir, why would you want to live to be ninety?

Trivia

There is an old hotel/pub in Marble Arch, London which used to have gallows adjacent. Prisoners were taken to the gallows (after a fair trial of course) to be hanged. The horse drawn dray, carting the prisoner was accompanied by an armed guard, who would stop the dray outside the pub and ask the prisoner if he would like “one last drink”’. If he said yes, it was referred to as “one for the road’. If he declined, that prisoner was “on the wagon”.

They used to use urine to tan animal skins, so families used to all pee in a pot and then once a day it was taken and sold to the tannery. If you had to do this to survive you were “piss poor’. But worse than that were the really poor folk who couldn’t even afford to buy a pot. They “didn’t have a pot to piss in” and were the lowest of the low.

Searching For The Money

              A minister was awakened one night by the sound of footsteps in his room. When he opened his eyes, he was looking down the barrel of a gun. “Don’t move or I shoot!” cried the nervous burglar. “I’m searching for your money.”

              Replied the impoverished minister, “Well, in that case, I’ll search with you.”

Sugar Free? Think Again

The claim: Artificial sweeteners cam raise blood sugar.

The facts: It seems like common sense that foods labelled “sugar free” would have no effect on sugar levels in the blood. But sometimes they do.

Most artificial sweeteners - saccharin, aspartame and sucralose - offer the sweetness of sugar without the calories.

They contain no carbohydrates and so have no effect on blood sugar. But these sweeteners are sometimes paired in “Sugar free” products with another sugar substitute called sugar alcohols.

Sugar alcohols get their name from their structure, which looks like a cross between a molecule of alcohol and sugar but is technically neither.

Companies have been adding them to ‘sugar free’ products, like cookies chewing gum, hard candy and chocolate.

For people trying to manage their blood sugar, this can make interpreting nutritional labels tricky.

While sugar alcohols provide fewer calories than regular sugar - in general about 1.5 to 3 calories per gram, compared to 4 calories per gram of sugar - they can slightly raise your blood sugar.

One way to account for them is to count half the grams of sugar alcohol in a product as carbohydrates.

You can identify sugar alcohols in an ingredient list by looking for words that end with “-OL”, like sorbitol, maltitol and xylitol. In foods labelled “sugar free” or “no sugar added”, the precise sugar alcohol count is listed separately under the nutritional information.

The bottom line: Some sugar substitutes can raise blood sugar, so read the label carefully.

- The New York Times 

Pity About The Weather

              A newly famous artist specialized in stormy seascapes. After a rather successful showing of his latest work, he was approached by an impressed viewer. “I think your work is tremendous.” Said the appreciator, “but what a shame you’ve had such bad luck with the weather.”