On 1/6/2011 5:31 AM, Brian Swale wrote:
> My opinion is totally opposite !! :-)
>
> If I see raw juices flowing from meat, I refuse to eat it since it obviously
> hasn't been cooked enough to kill whatever living hazard might be in there.
We each get to choose our own balance between living life fully and enjoyably
and the risks entailed by doing so.
Fortunately, where I live, government has found a balance. Restaurants must
cook meats to certain minimum degrees of
doneness - unless the patron specifically asks for something else. If you just
ordered a hamburger, you'd get well done.
But I can still order medium rare, and have beef I find at least palatable,
usually enjoyable. I assume some fast food
places just don't give the option, preferring safety (theirs, not yours) to
flavor. Perhaps they assume that anyone
eating there has already invalidated any assumption that they are capable of
seeing to their own safety. ;-)
Our 'Western' culture has become irrationally fear based, working hard to avoid
risks that are minimal in probability
and/or seriousness of consequences.
Simple reality check; compare your experience of daily life with what you see
and hear on the news.
Simple example: I read somewhere fairly recently about someone who tried to
compare rates of child abduction recently
vs. historical. They concluded that a good comparison wasn't possible; much was
swept under the rug and otherwise under
reported back when I was a kid. Their best guess, based on a lot of research,
was that rates are probably roughly
comparable.
What's different now is aggressive reporting that fans fears. When I was a kid
"at risk", we all ran free from coming
home from school to dinnertime and most of the summer. I never heard of any kid
I knew or knew of being abducted. Was
one or more? I don't know for sure, but doubt it.
Now, parents hold their children so tightly that it's hard for them to have
what I would call a happy, healthy
childhood. Hard for the parents to have a happy, healthy adulthood, too.
I'm not advocating anything specific here, only suggesting that public
perceptions and actual risks may vary a lot. Life
is inherently risky, suffering and death are givens. You can try to avoid all
risks. Doing so will just expose you to
others* - and you will die anyway. Remember the boy in the bubble.
Moose
* Depression, madness, eating tofu, terminal boredom, diseases no one ever
heard of until we all became so fearful, and
so on. :-)
--
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