When I lived in the US, there was a radio show from the Twin Cities that I listened to called Garage Logic. And on this radio show, people rang up occasionally with bizarre things that they saw or heard or read, and the host, Joe Soucheray, would sometimes call these things an "End of the World." And then he'd play a clip from REM's song "It's the end of the world as we know it (and I feel fine)." Other times he'd just play the foghorn clip (basically an audible eyeroll).

Yesterday I heard about an almost definite End of the World.

It seems the US Government has banned Vegemite. Seriously. And why? Because it has folate/folic acid added. Which is currently only allowed to be added to breads and cereals. Link here.

Okay, people, basic nutrition lesson coming up. Folate is a B vitamin. The best source of B vitamins in nature is meat. Folate is something they tell pregnant women and women trying to get pregnant to have plenty of because it's said to prevent neural tube defects such as spina bifida.

Are they going to start banning meat next because it's not supposed to have folate? Wouldn't put it past them. Yeah, I know, it's only because it's been added in production, not because it occurs naturally. But really (and this is totally off the point)...adding vitamins & minerals during production takes them out of their natural environment, and in some cases, makes them unabsorbable. Not only that, but in the production of breads and cereals, they take a lot of things OUT of the grains and then add back in a fraction of what was there to begin with.

All that aside though, if folate is such a good thing, then why limit it to only breads and cereals?

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