1843. Hearty food

Dean’s doctor told him to start eating healthy. He searched online for healthy foods. There were links to different foods that said “Eat these for a healthy heart”. Dean clicked on them, link after link. It took a good half an hour to download all the pages each with a different healthy food.

The following, in this order, were good for the heart:

Oranges, kale, garlic, red wine, chocolate, sardines, lentils, almonds, pomegranates, blueberries, beets, salmon, turmeric, chia seeds, apples, avocados, eggplant, broccoli, carrots, chicken, chickpeas, coffee, cranberries, figs, flax seeds, red hot chilli peppers, ginger, grapefruit, green tea, kidney beans, kiwi fruit, mackerel, cashew nuts, oatmeal, pears…

Dean tried them all, one after the other, and it made no difference. He was still hungry. Health food doesn’t fill you up.

He finished off with a big slice of cream sponge cake and at last was satisfied.

1710. God is watching

(The plot of this story is not my own. I don’t know if it’s an old story or an already well-known story, but I’d never heard it before and I enjoyed it! Hence, here it is!)

It was lunchtime at the school run by the nuns. Sister Mary supervised. She placed a sign at one end of the table on top of a big basket of apples. It read: TAKE ONLY ONE APPLE. GOD IS WATCHING.

At the other end of the table was a large bowl of chocolate chip cookies. Some kid had put a sign on it: TAKE AS MANY AS YOU LIKE. GOD IS WATCHING THE APPLES.

634. An apple a day

© Bruce Goodman 6 July 2015

Marlene sat in the pew at her husband’s funeral. After fifty-two years of marriage, this was the time she had dreaded. Fifty-two years, and now all over.

“An apple a day keeps the doctor away”, Fred used to say. And, indeed, that was the case. They’d both eaten an apple a day. And they both always had excellent health. Except for the one time he’d broken a toe in the middle of the night trying to kick the door shut before the cat got out.

The number of apples devoured came to about thirty-eight thousand apples between them, Marlene figured. Of course, occasionally they’d missed – it was always the first thing for breakfast, an apple. Cored and peeled and sliced of course.

Once (it was so funny to remember) Fred had purchased a bag of apples and when they peeled and sliced two for breakfast, it was discovered they were sour cooking apples. That was one of the days they missed on their apple, although Marlene did use them to make an apple crumble.

Fifty-two years and an apple a day, thought Marlene. It’s funny the unimportant thoughts that come into your head at such an important time. But I suppose it was natural enough for Marlene to think of apples while sitting in the pew. After all, he’d died at breakfast when he choked on a slice of apple, hadn’t he?

566. God didn’t make little green apples

© Bruce Goodman 29 April 2015

Leslie had a brainwave. It was a remarkably simple solution to a problem. Science had discovered that red apples were healthier than green apples. The problem was how to stop people from eating green apples when they should be eating red apples.

Leslie’s solution took on throughout the world. Everyone chopped down their green-apple producing trees.

But there was a glitch. The occasional person kept the occasional green apple tree. It was usually a genuine case of mistaken apple-identity, rather than an intentional criminal act.

Governments came to the rescue. ALL apple trees were to be chopped down, and… Hurrah! It worked! There were no more green apples.