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Let the sky rain potatoes

Just a word to the kids of today: listen to your mothers; don’t leave anything on your plate if you want dessert. Okay, maybe modern mothers aren’t like that anymore, and at dinnertime they are just getting back from Yoga after stopping at the health food store to buy some vegan ingredients to mix together for supper in the off chance you and your father haven’t already eaten; and in the off chance you both are still at home.

Family dinners where everybody sits around a table in the kitchen and discusses how their days have gone, seem, well, Leave it to Beaver or Father Knows Best stuff -not that anybody (no doubt including my readers) has any idea what I mean by that… and anyway, like The Twilight Zone, most of those TV shows were all in black and white and required careful positioning of the rabbit ears on top of the TV cabinet so you wouldn’t miss anything in the wavy fuzz on the screen.

No, I suspect that not only are family discussions over a plate of Mac and Cheese or over-cooked Salisbury steak things of the past, but so are the homespun instructions (the Folk remedies) about how to overcome the common illnesses that continue to plague us.

Not to overplay the Wisdom of the years, thing, but there is sometimes a grain of truth in the counsel we were given (well, me for sure) in the pre-Google days. And now, when even social media advice is being outdone by the AI on our phones, how believable is all of this nouveau stuff we’re being force-fed? I mean where did it come from? Is it outdated, or biased…? Where should we go for time-tested, elder-approved remedies? Any of us who heeded them and were therefore kept alive are morally required to believe in them, are they not?

Except out of a begrudging sense of respect, very little credence is accorded my Silver Generation for its wellness advice. Nowadays it’s all kale and tofu; nobody with still-functioning neural circuits still mentions grandma’s chicken soup recipe for whatever ails them. Nobody ever tells you to ‘feed a cold and starve a fever’ do they? I’m not even sure my mother actually believed starvation would work, but with the slightest phlegmy cough I used to get a peanut butter and jam sandwich, Vic’s Vaporub applied to my chest, and after drinking a cup of hot, well-sugared tea (germs didn’t like heat), I was sent to bed and tucked under heavy blankets to make me sweat. I don’t know, I mean it seemed to work, eh?

I’m not sure about the ‘starve a fever’ thing, but my mother believed too strongly in food to be fooled, and for that I am truly grateful. But what goes around comes around; I’m using the expression in its cosmic cycle sense, of course: some things -like my mother’s advice- can sometimes do a long-overdue about face and come back into fashion. There is now some credible evidence to suggest that the body’s vaunted immune system’s T cells can become more effective at targeting disease or infection after a meal.[i]

So maybe we should be feeding both colds and fevers and avoid quibbling over the ongoing disease process. According to a  study published in the journal Nature, eating meals comes with an immediate immunological benefit. This could be important for strengthening the immune system  when receiving an IV antibiotic, or combating autoimmune disorders. Well-fed cells seem better at responding to infections; maybe the presence of food meant they were able to access enough energy to mount a strong defensive response.

The same result occurred in mice who were involved in the studies, wouldn’t you know it? The mice demonstrated a longer-term benefit from a certain subset of T cells called memory cells. These special T cells remembered pathogens the body had previously faced and rapidly responded if those threats were encountered again. But, although in mice the effect was heightened by a fatty meal, there was heightened T cell response regardless of the meal eaten.

Clearly, this suggests that there might be a benefit to scheduling any vaccinations for after a meal. Or, for that matter, to stay on top of any new developments in the field by keeping pet mice. Robbie Burns -always ahead of his time- seemed to think so in his poem of apology when he accidentally destroyed a field mouse’s nest with his plough while working at a farm. Not even wondering about the value of future research on mice, it caused him to reflect on the imbalance between humanity’s domination and the rest of nature. Mice only suffer in the present moment he said, whereas humans obsess on the past’s pain, and worry about an unforeseeable future.

Still, perhaps seeing the dawn creeping through the window and casting mysterious shadows across the waking field outside, might allow us to see the world anew. Perhaps mice, too, are yawning with the new day and know more than we think: perhaps it’s not really important to wonder about the future; perhaps it is enough to wander the field thinking themselves blessed if they stumble upon an uneaten sandwich or a torn package of discarded Quaker oats. Maybe the future for them is simply the excitement for what each day might supply.

As I mentioned, I think Robbie Burns saw something different in mice for which the rest of us could only hope; he wrote it in difficult to decipher lowland Scottish dialect, though:

In proving foresight may be vain:

The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men

          Gang aft agley,

An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,

          For promis’d joy!

Still, thou art blest, compar’d wi’ me!

The present only toucheth thee:

But Och! I backward cast my e’e,

          On prospects drear!

An’ forward tho’ I canna see,

          I guess an’ fear!

You have to gather hope wherever you can find it. ‘Feed a cold’ and my mother’s other exhortations have been vindicated once again. Now I’m just waiting for a rebirth of Vic’s Vaporub and chicken soup.  

[i] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-026-10432-8

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