Sideband #29: The Danger of Bread

Here’s another little favorite from my collection.

It’s a satire designed to illustrate the rather large difference between correlation and causation. But unlike the dihydrogen monoxide hoax, you’ll probably have a hard time getting many signatures on a petition to ban bread!

Still, it’s funny and it seems to make sense… because it deals strictly with facts. Again: correlation is not (necessarily) causation. Sometimes it’s not even close.

As an aside: gluten allergies are finally being recognized as serious and real, and that is no hoax or joke. In that case, issues from eating bread products are definitely caused by the bread. So that’s one thing, but this is another.

A Dangerous Killer Lurks in Your Kitchen!

Many people are completely unaware of the dangerous substance sitting on their pantry shelves!

Facts About Bread

1. More than 98 percent of convicted felons are bread eaters.
2. Fully HALF of all children who grow up in bread-consuming households score below average on standardized tests.
3. In the 18th century, when virtually all bread was baked in the home, the average life expectancy was less than 50 years; infant mortality rates were unacceptably high; many women died in childbirth; and diseases such as typhoid, yellow fever and influenza ravaged whole nations.
4. More than 90 percent of violent crimes are committed within 24 hours of eating bread.
5. Bread is made from a substance called “dough.” It has been proven that as little as one pound of dough can be used to suffocate a mouse. The average American eats more bread than that in one month!
6. Primitive tribal societies that have no bread exhibit a low occurrence of cancer, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s disease and osteoporosis.
7. Bread has been proven to be addictive. Subjects deprived of bread and given only water to eat, actually begged for bread after only two days.
8. Bread is often a “gateway” food item, leading the user to harder items such as butter, jelly, peanut butter and even cold cuts.
9. Bread has been proven to absorb water. Since the human body is more than 90 percent water, it follows that eating bread could lead to your body being taken over by this absorptive food product, turning you into a oggy, gooey bread-pudding person.
10. Newborn babies can choke on bread.
11. Bread is baked at temperatures as high as 400 degrees Fahrenheit! That kind of heat can kill an adult in less than one minute.
12. Most American bread eaters are utterly unable to distinguish between significant scientific fact and meaningless statistical babbling.

Take Action Now!

In light of these frightening statistics, we propose the following bread restrictions:

• No sale of bread to minors.
• No advertising of bread within 1000 feet of a school.
• A 300 percent federal tax on all bread to pay for all the societal ills we might associate with bread.
• No animal or human images, nor any primary colors (which may appeal to children) may be used to promote bread usage.

Join the fight to ban this dangerous substance. Write your congressional members today!