I am afraid of making any choice, because every choice can be really bad

Every so often, a report rises to the surface of our information overload warning about the dangers of consuming certain types of food. Just as quickly, it is countered by another claiming the opposite, or downplaying the risks.
Is red meat bad for you or not? Well, yes and no. Too much is obviously an unwise choice, but how much is too much? Then there is all that talk about red wine: first ‘they’ said a glass a day kept the doctor away, and then we heard the benefits are inconclusive in newer studies. Ditto with eggs. First touted as a perfect meal made by nature, now they are the spawn of the devil. Too much cholesterol - of the bad kind. Or not.

In this age of tech-driven lives, one easily becomes beholden to every kind of science, including what is probably voodoo science. Everyone is seemingly an expert on just about everything, and they have a thousand ways to frame answers to every question, including some with life-changing consequences.

Like the so-called immunisation debate; should there even be one? Many parents swear vaccinations are poison; they will deliberately expose their children to chicken pox so that they can avoid the mandatory shots. But what to do with more serious illnesses like polio and measles? They rant on about Big Pharma and the conspiracy to poison our children for profit. When does a theory claim bona fide status?

If reading and research are key to making your own decisions, prepare to be overwhelmed by the sheer amount of literature available to inform and misinform you. Even what is clearly junk science is so attractively packaged and phrased, complete with expert opinions, that you may end up giving it a second look. And when a bad idea is sold by a celebrity, it achieves fact ranking – because we want to identify with the people we admire.

So, when Gwyneth Paltrow advises women to purchase an expensive jade egg – retail price $66 – to insert into their vaginas in order to ‘release the spirit within’ – you might think it’s a great idea, because she would know, right? She also advocates for steaming the aforementioned organ, touting extensive health benefits. I mean, isn’t this to be compared to the numerous portions and good luck charms sold by traditional healers for much less? And yet those jade eggs are flying off the shelf and into the, er, bodies of women who have a spirit to release.
Lately, I have been wandering supermarket aisles like a zombie, staring blankly at food labels. It used to be easy to toss a few items into a basket; limited choice was your friend after all.

And now, there are 16 brands of millet porridge apparently enhanced with ash and 28 of rice possibly made of edible teflon; I am terrified by the unnatural pinkness of the deli meats – nitrites supposedly cause colorectal cancer – and what kind of poison causes the dish detergent to turn such a fierce shade of green? Those yellow yoke eggs – are they real, or did they perform in that Chinese video about plastic eggs?

Ironically, as the world fell open in front of us, beckoning with endless possibilities, there was also a sense that everything was shrinking around us. Even with vast troves of information, I remain ignorant – and worse, afraid. Afraid of making any choice, because clearly, every choice can be a really bad choice.

Ms Barenzi is a communications professional and writer
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