The Expedition: July '24 Edition
Cancer prevention, the ideal running dose, which supplements "work," how to get healthy food for 66% off, insane friends, and more ...
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The post
This monthly series is a journey into thoughts, opinions, ideas, observations, studies, facts, figures, etc.
Good ones, bad ones, insightful ones, dumb ones, and ones you can use to live better.
It’s a roundup of all the worthwhile stuff I’ve encountered in the last month. The Expedition is a bit of an island of misfit toys. But, hey, the greatest journeys are winding.
This month, we’re covering:
Numbers on:
Processed meat consumption and health risks.
A minimum effective dose of running.
Couples who sleep alone.
The drop in violent deaths.
Women’s sports.
How long rice lasts in the fridge.
Social media and democracy.
An important phone number.
The easiest way to become a millionaire.
A graph on the history of income and happiness levels.
A graph on what helps you prevent getting cancer.
Results from a survey of what supplements feel like they work.
An insane travel trend (that my wife was way ahead of the curve on).
A mindfulness podcast I appeared on.
How to get organic food for 66% off.
A wonderful, tough, supremely functional workout I did—that you should do, too!
My insane friends and why you should get your own insane friends.
A parting quote.
A critical parting question for the comments section.
By the numbers
818
Hotdogs are eaten per second in the United States between Memorial Day and Labor Day each year.
130,000,000
Hotdogs Costco sells each year.
1
Percent of cancers are attributable to the consumption of processed meats. Like hotdogs! (More on this below).
Here’s a reasonable assessment of the research on processed meats and health risks.
Two Percent take: Eating processed meat daily is probably not healthy. But a hot dog at a cookout or baseball game here and there—in the context of an overall healthy lifestyle—is probably fine. Who wants to live without hotdogs? Not me.
50
Minutes of running a week leads to significant health upsides. The benefits:
30 percent reduced risk of death by heart attack.
23 percent reduced risk of cancer.
27 percent reduced risk of death from any cause.
35
Percent of Americans have a “sleep divorce” with their partner. That means they sleep in a different room than their partner consistently or occasionally.
10
Percent of skeletons from the late Neolithic era (7000 to 1700 B.C.) show evidence of death by violence. That is to say, you had a 1 in 10 chance of getting murdered back then.
0.01
Percent of Americans who died by violence in 2022. Roughly 7.5 of every 100,000 deaths in America today are from homicide.
300
Percent the U.S. women’s sports industry has grown since 2021. It’s predicted to break the $1 billion revenue barrier this year.
YES—and go Aces, the back-to-back WNBA champions.
50:50
The distribution of female to male athletes at the Paris Olympics. “For the first time in Olympic history, there will be full gender parity on the field of play.”
That’s another YES from me.
4 to 6
Days that cooked rice will last in the refrigerator “so long as it’s been stored in a fridge that’s 40 degrees Fahrenheit or cooler, and never left out for more than two hours (or at most one hour on particularly hot days).”
Rice left out for too long can become a home for Bacillus cereus, which can lead to low-level food poisoning.
1/3
Of people in the US say that social media has been good for our democracy.
The US ranked lowest on a Pew survey of 27 countries by a significant margin. Nigeria and Mexico ranked first, with 77 percent of their citizens reporting that social media has been good for their democracy.
988
The phone number of the revamped national suicide hotline.
It launched two years ago, but 67 percent of adults say they don’t know about the hotline. The hotline has fielded 10 million calls since it started.
17
Percent probability that a person 7 feet or taller becomes an NBA player. Even for people between 6’6” and 6’8”, the probability is just 0.07%.
Hence, Forbes said being 7 feet or taller is “the fastest way to get rich in America.”
A graph on happiness and income
This graph displays subjective well-being levels (scientists speak for “happiness”) and income adjusted for inflation from 1946 to 1989.
The takeaway: Since the 1940s, real income rose sharply but happiness levels remained generally constant.
The lesson: Money will only make you happy to a point. We tend to habituate, or “get used to,” higher income and material improvements.
A graph on preventing cancer
Forty percent of cancer is thought to be preventable. Here’s where your risks lie.
Big takeaways: Don’t smoke, don’t be obese, don’t drink too much, protect yourself from the sun, be active.
What supplements feel like they work?
Brady Holmer posed an interesting question on Twitter, which got some fascinating responses. He asked:
Let’s dive in.