I needed to attend a deposition in Washington D.C. today. I brought one of my daughters (she's 6) on the trip. She patiently drew pictures and read books during the deposition, which lasted two hours this morning. Now that I'm done with work, we're having fun doing tourist things. First, we visited…
This important breaking science news was reported by the BBC: When it comes to tongues, melting chocolate is better than a passionate kiss, scientists have found. Couples in their 20s had their heart rates and brains monitored whilst they first melted chocolate in their mouths and then kissed. Chocolate caused…
To see why Twinkies are cheap and fresh produce is expensive,"you need look no farther than the farm bill," according to this article in the New York Times: This resolutely unglamorous and head-hurtingly complicated piece of legislation, which comes around roughly every five years and is about to do so…
American culture celebrates the quick fix. Diet pills like Trimspa and Ephedra enjoyed massive popularity despite their health risks because many people want to look healthy without actually living healthfully. Take a diet pill, pop a multivitamin instead of getting nutrients through food, starve yourself- it doesn’t matter how you…
Today, an acquaintance (I’ll call her “Laura”) asked me if I would buy some Girl Scout cookies from her daughter’s troop. I told her “No thank you.”
It’s not that I don’t enjoy eating Girl Scout cookies (I do enjoy Thin Mints and Peanut Butter Sandwich Cookies). It’s not that I generally oppose the activities of Girl Scouts. I approve of much of what Girl Scouts do.
Here’s what triggered this post. Laura told me that the average box of cookies sells for three dollars and that the average profit for each box of cookies is only fifty cents. Hmmmm.
Therefore, I can support their Girl Scouts to the same extent by handing $5 directly to the local troop or by buying $30 worth of cookies. Unless you think that eating cookies is an especially good thing, it makes much more sense to simply hand the local troop $5. Then again, eating cookies, especially a lot of cookies, is not a good thing. Cookies consist largely of refined carbohydrates and sugars. These are exactly the kinds of ingredients that invite obesity. Are the Girl Scouts concerned about obesity? Very much so (so am I), yet they continue to rely on cookie sales to fund their activities.
But let’s go back to the money for a moment. If you click here, you can see it stated that “all of the revenue” from cookie sales “stays with the local Girl Scout council that sponsors the sale.” The official site carefully …
