This post refers to a 2011 article by a Food and Lifestyle Blogger called the Food Babe. When the absurdity of what she had written was pointed out on-line she did not write a retraction or attempt to clarify her position, she just deleted the article from her site. Thankfully one or two people had the foresight to keep copies so you can read the full article here. I am going to, probably quite unfairly, choose a few sentences for close study.
Mistake One
When your body is in the air, at a seriously high altitude, your body under goes some serious pressure. Just think about it – Airplanes thrive in places we don’t. You are traveling in a pressurized cabin, and when your body is pressurized, it gets really compressed!
Clue: what really happens to air pressure in planes?
Mistake Two
Additionally, the pressurized cabin reduces the humidity by 40% of what humans typically thrive at.
Clue: what is one of the products of respiration that humans breathe out?
Mistake Three
The air you are breathing on an airplane is recycled from directly outside of your window. That means you are breathing everything that the airplanes gives off and is flying through.
Clue 1: what does recycle mean?
Clue 2: what does a plane “give off”?
Mistake Four
The air that is pumped in isn’t pure oxygen either, it’s mixed with nitrogen, sometimes almost at 50%. To pump a greater amount of oxygen in costs money in terms of fuel and the airlines know this!
Clue: what does fresh air consist of?
Mistake Five
The nitrogen may affect the times and dosages of medications, make you feel bloated and cause your ankles and joints swell.
Clue: why might your ankles swell in a plane at altitude?
Thus your mission is simple: use the comments section below to identify any scientific inaccuracies you can spot. The reason I think this stuff is important is that many people are basing their decision making on this quality of information. If this is really the Food Babe’s level of scientific understanding, of how much value is her other advice? With good critical thinking skills you can learn to distinguish plausible ideas from nonsense.
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