Krazy Krystal's Laboratory

Recommended daily dose

After working a 70 hour+ week my mind has turned to paste and so i am left completely perplexed by the mundane things in life. My weekly quota of mental energy has been spent on other things however, the big question that's plaguing me all day has very little to do with Leishmania;

Who decided the measure of condiment present in a single serve sachet?

I mean really, how do you determine what the daily allowance of black pepper is? Or indeed how much pepper is generally appropriate for garnishing one's meal? Is it a metric thing? Did they pick some nice divisible number like 100 mg of pepper per sachet so they could sell 1000 packets per 100 grams? I've never thought to look and see if the amount is on the label, and off the top of my mushy mind I can't even provide a decent guesstimate. Based on my knowledge of weighing out various powders, I would assume that it's in the hundreds of milligrams ball park, but I may be way (weigh) off.

Ok, so I know salt is very unfashionable, but I can't help it, I am addicted. And before you throw your hands up in horror and book me in for by-pass surgery, let me explain. I happen to have quite low blood pressure, not dangerously so that I pass out all the time, but I am prone to fits of swooning (and not just cause i've seen the latest Johnny Depp film). So I have decided to take salt medicinally, and now refer to it as "my blood pressure medication" *giggle*

So when I take my blood pressure medication, I would generally give the salt shaker a good five or six shakes over my plate I'd say... but how much salt is that? Is that how they (whoever "they" are) determined the individual portion size? Did they get a panel of six people to add condiments to their meal, and weigh the serving vessel before and after application to gauge usage? How can we control for population variance? Would you need to normalise to the weight of the person to get a dose in mg per kg? Would the data be normally distributed? Where are the peer reviewed publication on this issue ?!?!? I need answers!!!

No, actually, what i really think i need is some sleep. But hey, that's what 26 hour long haul flights are for I guess *giggle*

posted by Dr Krystal @ 10:23 pm