28 May 2009

Another Round of Myth Busting!

1. Hostess Twinkies have and indefinite shelf life.

Twinkies have a shelf life of twenty-five days, not seven years, and certainly not fifty years. Even so, twenty-five days is an unusually long time for a baked product to stay fresh. The secret to Twinkies' longevity is their lack of dairy ingredients: because dairy products are not part of the formula, Twinkies spoil much more slowly than other bakery items. (Source)

2. Multiplying your dog's age by seven will produce its equivalent in human years.

Come to think of it, I have never thought twice about whether this would be an accurate thing or not. Turns out, it isn't. Here is why:



3. A duck's quack doesn't echo, and nobody knows why

Why wouldn't a duck's quack echo? What could there possibly be about the sound a duck makes that would uniquely exempt it from physical laws that apply to all other such sounds, e.g., a dog's bark, a cat's meow, or a lamb's bleat? The answer is: nothing. (Source)

4. Are red cars more expensive to insure? 

The color of your car does not influence your auto insurance cost at all.
n fact, most car insurance companies don’t even ask for your car’s color.

Instead, insurance companies determine rates by looking at other risk factors like your driving history, previous claims record, where you live, and the model and age of your car. (Source)

5. Red cars are ticketed for speeding more often than vehicles of other colors.

In an attempt to prove or disprove the belief, in 1990 a reporter for the St. Petersburg Times conducted his own smallish survey of which color of cars were getting the most speeding tickets in his area. He first staked out four intersections in the two counties he was studying and made a tally by color of vehicle of the 1,198 cars that went through them. He then leafed through the most recent 924 speeding citations issued in those two counties to arrive at a count of how many had been issued to each color of car. Last, he compared the two results to see if the resultant percentages closely approximated one another or were badly out of sync.

His findings challenged the belief about red cars being dunned with proportionally more of the speeding tickets. Red cars accounted for 14 percent of the local vehicle population and about 16 percent of the citations for speeding, which is not a significant difference. (Source)

6. Eating sugar makes kids hyperactive.

While parents may be convinced that sugary drinks, sweets and chocolate make their children hyperactive at least 12 studies have shown that there is no evidence to support this belief. Yet parents are so convinced about this myth that when they think their children have been given a drink containing sugar (when it is actually sugar-free) they rate their children's behavior as more hyperactive. In fact, the difference in behavior is all in the parents' mind. (Source)


Mitzy said...

That is very interesting! I feel like a more enlightened individual now. Thank you all mighty guru!

Jess said...

Mitzy - I hear you too have enlightenment in a useless knowledge book...I get dibs on that one after Larkin!!

Kat said...

It isn't sugar that makes kids hyper, it is caffeine. Oh and if you give caffeine to an ADHD kid it will actually calm them down (was told this by a child psychologist) because it has the same stimulant affect as something like ritalin.

Jess said...

Kat - my mother could have used this knowledge years ago...my brother would have had a coffee drip attached to him!

sassy stephanie said...

Yeah, my dumb ass blonde lab chewed through the wires of our electric driveway gate when she was a year old. Can't see a 7 yr old human doing that. But then again, my Trouble is only 3. Hmmmm.

Pseudonymous High School Teacher said...

Having worked in vet clinics and having owned lots of dogs - I have tried to tell people that seven year thing doesn't work. But I gave up. You get through explaining and they still ask "how old is your dog in dog years."

Sorry, but onthe last one. It depends on your kid's metabolism. If you get near my hyperactive unfocused son and hype him up on sugar? I will have to kill you.


Very interesting that Twinkies have no dairy. Is that true of Hostess cupcakes? My son is lactose intolerant,and I have kept him from eating Hostess products because of the cream filling. If there is no dairy in them, then I'm going to buy a box this morning!!

Jess said...

Sassy - what is it with animals and electric wires?!? One of my cats does that! And those HD wires are EXPENSIVE! Almost had cat soup the other day after yet, another wire, met it's match with Boo Boo's teeth.

PHST - Sugar is actually a sedative! I didn't believe it either, but here are some links:


From the Nutrition Almanac: http://books.google.com/books?id=pqsxS9tge8kC&pg=PA106&lpg=PA106&dq=sugar+is+a+sedative&source=bl&ots=1IuTG6kukD&sig=o5xwGsue9G8JCkgEWSoDP0JcMOo&hl=en&ei=a-AfSrqxM5yltgft4oy-Bg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6

But I PROMISE not to hop your kid up on sugar AND most CERTAINLY will not taunt him with Starbucks.

PinkMonkey - LOVE THE NAME! My girlfriend is a monkey lovin fool! I always tell people that I sleep with monkeys, but that is because our bed is FULL of stuffed monkeys. Anyway, Twinkies do not have any dairy, the filling is made of shortening. Here is a complete description of what is in them: http://recipes.howstuffworks.com/twinkie1.htm

Don't worry...despite all of what they say in there, millions have eaten a good Twinkie or ten in their day and have lived to tell about it!