WARNING BREAD IS DANGEROUS!!!

 WARNING BREAD IS DANGEROUS!!!

Going viral before social media.

>>SATIRE<<

*Original e-mail 1997.*

Prologue, For more context regarding the origin of this piece read the Epilogue.

*Prologue from 2006.

WARNING The dangers of Bread... 

 We have all seen or heard the news online, radio and on the idiot box and the current affairs type alarmist articles, program segments and posts.

 You know the ones, Meat causes cancer, milk is bad for you,The cholesterol in eggs will give you a heart attack, Sugar is evil, Soy is destroying the rain-forest, Palm oil is clearing the jungles and killing orangutans etc etc..

 Just thismornin I came across a sugar = bad one,Then a warning that woolies hot cross buns use palm oil so if you buy it you just killed an orangutan and soon after a the dangers of alcohol.

The comparisons were more alarming to me than the attempted warnings with the attempt to shock people into not eating something because ??? 

I will leave that up to you but I decided to put together a little comparison of the medias tactics myself....

*Original e-mail from 1997.* VVVVVVVVVV

WARNING: BREAD IS DANGEROUS !!!

 #1- More than 98% of convicted felons are bread users.

 #2- 90% of violent crimes are committed within 24 hours of eating bread.

 #3- New born babies can choke on bread.

 #4- Fully half of children raised in bread consuming households scored below average on standardised intelligence tests.

 #5- 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 during childbirth and diseases such as typhoid, yellow fever and influenza ravaged whole nations.

 #6- Primitive tribal societies that had no bread exhibit a low incidence of cancer, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's disease and osteoporosis.

 #7- Bread is made from a substance called 'dough'. It has been proven that as little as 200gms of 'dough' can be used to suffocate a mouse, The average person consumes more than this in one week.

 #8- Bread is baked at temps of around 220 degrees C,That kind of heat can kill an adult human in less than 60 seconds.

 #9- Bread has been proven to be addictive. Subjects deprived of bread and given only water to eat begged for bread after as little as 2 days.

 #10- Bread is oft a 'gateway' food item leading the user to 'harder' items such as Butter, jam, vegemite, peanut butter and even cold cuts.

 #11- Bread has been proven to absorb water.Since the human body is more than 90% water it could lead to your body being taken over and cause death by dehydration.

 #12- Many Bread eaters are utterly unable to distinguish the difference tween scientific fact and meaningless statistical babbling...

 In light of these disturbingly frightening statistics I now propose the following Bread restrictions: 

 #1- No sale of Bread to minors.

  #2- A nation wide 'JUST SAY NO TO TOAST' campaign complete with celebrity TV adds and bumper stickers.

 #3- A 300% tax on all bread to pay for all the societal ills we can associate with Bread.

 #4- No animal or human images nor any primary colours(which may appeal to children) may be used on packaging or to promote Bread usage.

 #5- The establishment of Bread free zones in public parks and around schools.

*End*

Epilogue,- I first wrote this in 1997 as a chain e-mail, Stuck at home alone I watched some news and was amazed at the attempts to scare me with particular memory to a segment regarding smoking, They insisted kids who listen to rap music are more likely to smoke and have poor grades at school etc. This got me to thinking. 

Later I sat at the computer and read a list of one of those top 20 funny e-mails sort of things so it was fresh in my mind, and I also remember I switched to The Simpsons in the middle of an episode where 

That was it as I walked into the kitchen to make a sandwich it rolled right into my head, the comparisons of the fear mongers could apply to almost anything, even bread.

As I sat to eat I started scribbling in my note book, after jotting a few notes I took it back to the computer, typed it out and hit send to a few friends and family. 

So it began, months Later I would receive it without my name from a friend I had sent it to asking, Didn't you write this? and I confirmed. 

Multiple family members might mention it in passing, Oh I got your e-mail again.

Thinking nothing of it until 1999 when I was alerted to it being published in a magazine. 

Having no real desire to be credited I again just went about my life mostly off grid at that point.

It wasn't until 2006 I got internet service and Facebook, After a short time learning the facebook format it occurred to me that Hey people liked that e-mail I wrote maybe I should try posting it on this new social media thing. 

The problem being I no longer had that computer or e-mail account, and presumably no way of finding it.

Again I let it ride, who cares, I could probably re-type something similar if I wanted anyway.

A short time later I mentioned it to my Mother and she said straight away she still had a copy and later forwarded it to me.

At this time I copy pasted it to a word pad in synchronised order, as you can read above.

From there I copy pasted it to my Facebook profile, it is at this point I wrote a short prologue and got lazy, and the reason I know who "passed on" the new version without an Author credit despite the fact I wrote ©J. W. Newell at the end. 

This post is still on my timeline. 

Now the reason I know who it was is because I was Facebook "friends" with a regular contributor to a site called -Hoax Slayer- and add to that it was copy pasted without the new prologue or my name however when I pasted it to Facebook it was garbled, As in not in order or synchronised, again because I was lazy, I did not take time to layer it and check the grammar etc, I simply typed in the prologue and hit post.

For this reason months later when I found it on Hoax Slayer via a friend, I confronted the person who I suspected and she admitted it, She said she would talk to the owners of the site and add the prologue and an author credit.

The reply was that I was not the Original Author and the prologue would of course negates the need for it to be on Hoax Slayer as I made it look like satire. Which it clearly was.

I lost a "friend".

Soon after I heard she was well remunerated for her services to Hoax Slayer when the owners, a couple of her friends,  sold their website/domain etc to another larger well known competitor in the "online debunking" sphere known as Snopes.

You can look it up to this day and it is the exact copy paste from my facebook post to the letter editing out the prologue and my name. 
Even the spelling mistakes.

The critique is also still the weasel words of my former "friend" who called me -Author unknown.

At this point I honestly don't care, I know the truth as I lived it and this will be the last time I publish anything about it. 

It was out of my hands that Saturday night in 1997 when I was bored and hit send.

It is to be sure even a great surprise to myself not only how far and wide it potentially went, but how relevant it remains as a satirical piece over 27 years later. 

With that all said feel free to share.

again.

Regards.

©Jayman. W. Newell