Signs and Wonders

Superstition, Sacrifice, and a Better Way to Think about Our Health

Readers, are you superstitious like me? Do you, like me, try to attract good luck with good deeds, and do you look for omens that all shall be well?

If so, maybe you can relate to these stories (or if not, maybe you will find them amusing): On the day that Noah would hear whether he had an offer from his top-choice university, I was volunteering at the school library. To send a message to the universe that our family was worthy of its beneficence, I organized the heck out of that library. I even put all the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books in numerical order and sorted out the Rick Riordan books, which was no small task. The universe took note of my sacrifice, and Noah got his offer.

On the day that Casey’s Early Decision results came back, I looked for a positive omen in the eccentric form of an Icelandic pony who lived near Casey’s school. Casey had dubbed him Emo Pony because of his long bangs and habit of standing dejectedly apart from the other ponies.¹ He was my good-luck charm; I decided that if I saw him that day, then the college admissions office had said yes. Emo Pony ambled right in front of my car as I drove up to the school. He proved prophetic: Casey got in.

Doesn’t Emo Pony look like he should be in a Seattle grunge band?

We’re most superstitious when we have the least power. Superstitions help us feel in control in frightening situations. They are a prayer to the universe that if we do everything just right, no bad luck will befall us.

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It’s understandable that we’re superstitious about our health. After all, as Jerry Seinfeld points out, death is second only to public speaking among our top fears (which “means that if you have to be at a funeral, you’d rather be in the casket than doing the eulogy”).

Let’s Fail Some Tests!

The mainstream media love to publish little health tests, and we love to take them, because we want to predict our future. We’re looking for signs that we are ok. We might, for example, try the Grip-Strength Test: We middle-aged folks need two forty-pound (18kg) barbells for women, or two sixty-pound (27kg) barbells for men. (For reference, forty pounds is the weight of a five-gallon water-cooler bottle.) Pick up a weight in each hand. Now get walking, fast. That’s the test. How’d you do?

Or try the Sitting-Rising Test: Sit on the floor. Now stand up, without using your hands or shifting onto your knees or grabbing a nearby chair or using anything else but your strong muscles, flexibility, and balance. Did you manage it? No? Is anyone besides me wishing the brilliant physical comedian John Ritter were still alive to demonstrate this test for us?

These two tests come from Are You Aging Well? 4 Simple Tests to Find Out, which claims that

While there’s no crystal ball to predict your future health, there are a few basic tests you can give yourself to gauge your current strength, power, cardiovascular fitness and balance—all of which will influence your physical abilities going forward.

To me, and I suspect many of us, these tests are not “simple.” I actually used to be able to do the Sitting-Rising Test back when I was younger and had a regular yoga practice. You sit criss-cross applesauce, kind of swing your weight off your hips and over your feet, roll your ankles so your feet are flat, and then stand up in a single fluid motion. But years of hiking and hundreds of steep descents have taken their toll on my knees and put the kibosh on this test.

Why do health experts never ask us how many times we’ve hiked to the summits of mountains, hmmm?

Then there’s that Grip-Strength Test. Supposedly, the stronger your grip, the longer your life. But on average women live longer than men, even though men have considerably more grip strength than women (why else do we need them to open jars for us?). Make it make sense. In fact nowadays my grip strength is excellent, but that’s because opening bottles of wine and grating hard cheeses are terrific exercises for the hand and wrist muscles. Take that, health scolds!

My favorite workout equipment.

We want to alleviate our fears. We want a guarantee. If we pass the tests, we take it as evidence that we will live long healthy lives. And if we fail, we decide the tests are baloney (as I have admittedly done here).

Sacrificing to Asclepius

Another way we allay health worries is to make sacrifices to Asclepius, the Greek god of healing. Health experts encourage us to give up pleasurable foods, drinks, and activities to protect ourselves. For example, experts quoted in How What You Eat Affects Your Cancer Risk advise us to forgo meat, sweets (even dried fruit), and all processed foods and alcohol.

And yet a New Study Sheds Light on Why Cancer Often Strikes Those with Healthy Lifestyles:

Looking across all 32 cancer types studied, the researchers estimate that 66 percent of cancer mutations result from copying errors, 29 percent can be attributed to lifestyle or environmental factors, and the remaining 5 percent are inherited.

It’s important to remember that “lifestyle or environmental factors” include smoking; exposure to asbestos, radiation, and other pollutants; extremely heavy (as opposed to moderate social) drinking; and infections such as HPV and hepatitis B. Given all that, what proportion of the 29 percent lifestyle risk comes from our little treats? How much extra life will our sacrifices buy us? The outsized influence of random chance on our health might seem terrifying, but it’s also freeing.

Our Puritan heritage predisposes us to moralize, but there is no such thing as a sinful food. I prefer a different religious metaphor: Indulgences were once how people expiated their sins. So let’s go ahead and indulge! Let’s eat the brie at a brunch buffet, enjoy a juicy burger at a barbecue, down a frothy beer after a hike, take an extra slice of pie on Thanksgiving, dare to eat the peach. Ordinary pleasures are good for the soul—and for the body too.

Dental Floss the Silent Killer

News outlets publish alarmist articles about our health not because it’s good for us to obsessively follow experts’ constantly changing recommendations, but rather because scary stories about our health are what get clicks. Reports of these dangers have been greatly exaggerated. Here, for example, are a few anodyne activities that health experts have recently warned us against:

• Brushing and flossing our teeth (because of microplastics).

• Going to the bathroom before we leave the house (because that risks “disrupting the natural feedback loop between your bladder and your brain”).

• Having a workout routine that is “too predictable” (because we might get bored and quit).

• Neglecting to wear sunscreen absolutely everywhere, including outside during thunderstorms and even indoors (go home, Big Sunscreen; you’re drunk).

• Doing yard work, “even for jobs that only take a minute,” without wearing safety glasses (do they think our yards are full of cactuses with eye-level spikes?).

• Using Q-tips in our ears.

Pity the poor dentists! They spend their entire careers trying to persuade us to improve our oral hygiene, and then experts waltz in to warn that toothbrushes and dental floss are slowly poisoning us.

As for the alleged dangers of Q-tips, I think health experts have to give up on this one. A recent study (cleverly titled “Ear-Rational Behavior”) concluded that “The use of Q-tips remains nearly universal in this young, highly educated, and socially media-engaged population, despite widespread awareness of professional warnings.”

Amusingly, the study’s authors recommend that experts should double down and create “targeted public health campaigns [to] discourage cotton swab use.”

Or here’s a thought: Health experts could just admit that millions of us clean our ears with Q-tips (and brush and floss, pee when we need to with no regard to the bladder-brain feedback loop, exercise how we like, are less than scrupulous about sunscreen, and rake leaves and pull up weeds unencumbered by safety goggles), and we are totally fine.

All Shall Be Well, and All Shall Be Well, and All Manner of Thing Shall Be Well

Mother Julian of Norwich had the right idea. Most of the time, all shall be well. And when it’s not, there are people in our lives who will help us. Worry is paying interest on a debt we may never owe. Those scary health stories are not true signs of danger. The healthiest response is to ignore and maybe even laugh at them. And then instead of giving up something we enjoy in the hope that our sacrifice will confer perfect safety on us, we can add something enjoyable to our lives. Here are a few ideas:

Take a walk with a friend. Pet an animal. Watch children playing in the park. Read a book with a child in your life. Appreciate a tree. Decorate your doorway with flowers.

Our lovely upstairs neighbor, Annemarie, bought these flowers for our building’s entrance to honor her late husband, who loved gardening.

Compliment a stranger. Shoot some hoops with the kids next door. Call an old friend. Listen to a favorite piece of music. Lounge around with loved ones and watch a movie or a game. Invite friends to sample desserts loaded with carbs, butter, and cream. Because spending time together does the heart good—literally!

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How about you, readers? Could you pass those health tests? Or are they baloney? What is something in your life that you enjoy and refuse to give up? Please share your thoughts in the comments!

The Tidbit

Bread pudding is delicious—so long as the chef doesn’t spoil it by adding spurious “healthy” ingredients like raisins. I know I am not alone in my animus against raisins because of the SNL Black Jeopardy sketch:² “Karen brings HER potato salad to YOUR cookout.” “And she will probably add something unnecessary, like raisins.”

My bread pudding recipe is loaded with carbs, butter, and cream, but you will be relieved to hear that it has no raisins!

Bread Crust Bread Pudding

This bread pudding recipe is simple to make. It serves twelve but can be divided in half for a smaller group. If you’re pressed for time on the day you’re hosting, you can make the pudding a day ahead and bake it just before guests arrive. The recipe is also the perfect excuse to use up those bread crusts no one wants, which you have been stashing in a Ziploc baggie in the freezer.

Ingredients

Around 8 bread crusts you’ve been saving in the freezer (thawed to room temperature)—or just a loaf of French bread—cut into cubes

4T (50gms) unsalted butter, plus more for the pan

3-1/2c (850ml) whole milk

1/2c (150ml) heavy cream

4-6 cardamom pods and 2-3 whole star anise

8 large eggs, at room temperature

1c sugar, or less, to taste

1/2c dark brown sugar

1/4tsp salt

zest from 1 orange

Method

1. An hour or so before you start baking, mix the milk and cream in a large Pyrex measuring cup. Add the cardamom pods and star anise and microwave for about two minutes. Leave on the counter to return to room temperature and to allow the spices to bloom.

2. Generously butter a 9x13 baking dish and preheat the oven to 350F/175C.

3. In a small saucepan, melt the butter.

4. Strew the bread cubes in the baking dish. You want them to just cover the bottom, without being too crowded. Pour the melted butter evenly over the bread cubes.

5. In a large bowl, beat the eggs with the sugars and salt. Zest the orange over the bowl and mix. Then pour in the milk and cream and mix until the custard is all one gooey mess.

6. Pour the custard over the bread cubes. At this point you can cover the pudding and store it overnight in the fridge. Return to room temperature before baking.

7. Bake the pudding for about an hour, until it is golden-brown on top and only a bit jiggly. Cool on a rack.

8. Serve warm, or at room temperature. You can also make the pudding a day ahead and refrigerate overnight. Bring to room temperature before serving.

1. Emo Pony’s real name is Sörli, which means “little sir” but is pronounced “surly.”

2. And also because a college friend who waited tables told me that every single time anyone ordered bread pudding, they would pick out the raisins and leave them in a little pile in the bowl.