When you’re a child, your parents have to teach you what’s dangerous or else you’ll probably bumble your way into all kinds of chaos and trauma. Hot stoves, sharp knives, electrical outlets, there are all kinds of hazards that look great to you as a toddler but you need to learn they are dangerous. Ironically, our whole species works this way. We have a long history of believing things are great up until the moment we learn how bad they truly are.
10. Agave Is Now Considered Unhealthier Than Refined Sugar
In the early to mid-2000s, agave emerged as a popular substitute for sugar with many websites and media outlets proclaiming it as a healthy substitute to the sugar we’re all used to. This was in part due to how it affects your glycemic index and how it didn’t raise your overall blood sugar as high as sugar. You can still get agave nectar in many places as it’s still widely marketed as a sugar alternative, but the science behind it being healthier and better for you has taken something of a turn. Now you can find articles which will tell you it’s actually worse than pure sugar. It’s so processed that any benefits it did have over sugar are lost.
Agave syrup is now likened to high fructose corn syrup more than sugar, a product which has been derided for decades now. Fructose converts very easily to fat, so you’re more likely to gain weight if you use agave. It can have negative effects on your metabolism, your liver, and contribute to diabetes as well. It has a low glycemic index because it’s not glucose, it’s fructose, which made it seem deceptively healthy so long as you ignore all of its other effects which is what companies marketing it did.
9. Atomic Bomb Tests Were Promoted as Tourist Attractions
There is no end to the things you can get a crowd of spectators to watch. Sure, people love to watch sports but you can get people to watch board games, Twitch streams, unboxing videos, cars that have caught on fire and a million other things. As a species we’re easily entertained. So easily, in fact, that during the height of atomic bomb testing a tourism industry cropped up around watching atomic testing in Nevada. Try to imagine doing that today.
In the 1950s, people used to throw parties in Las Vegas where everyone got together at what was considered a safe distance. A televised bomb test in 1952 made the entire thing seem thrilling and kicked off the age of atomic tourism. Las Vegas took to calling itself Atomic City. The Chamber of Commerce released a bomb schedule so people knew when to come and see the blasts, and even a list of locations that could offer you the best view.
There were 235 atomic tests conducted at the Nevada proving grounds and the city of Las Vegas openly touted it as a tourist attraction until 1963. By that time, people in Nevada and Utah had begun to complain that the effects of the blast were harming livestock in the area and the Limited Test Ban Treaty moved testing underground.
8. Nutella Once Claimed to Be Healthy
Nutella is still hugely popular and you can find it everywhere. Nutella at Starbucks, Nutella at McDonalds, Nutella at Krispy Kreme. It makes sense, of course, it’s a mix of chocolate and hazelnuts, that’s a winning combo for any dessert or sweet treat. The problem is that, for years, Nutella advertised its product as being healthy when it’s essentially just cake frosting.
The company was charged with deceptive ad practices because their commercials and ads suggested it was part of a healthy meal. That kind of language is sketchy because you can have a healthy meal, add a bowl of pure lard on the side, and say the lard is part of a healthy meal. So when a mom in California sued the company she claimed she had been taken in by those ads which resulted in her not realizing she was feeding a relatively unhealthy product to her four-year-old.
The lawsuit was bumped up to a class action suit and Nutella paid out $3 million. People did make fun of this at the time claiming that TV ads were a bad way to get nutritional info and that the main ingredients in Nutella were just sugar and fat. And while that’s true, as a defense it seems to be suggesting that it’s okay to lie if you feel like your lie is so stupid no one would believe it.
In addition to paying the class action settlement, the company agreed to no longer run ads that made it seem like their product was in any way healthy.
7. Lysol was Promoted as Birth Control
Vintage ads are always kind of fun to look at because there once was a time when the ad world was basically the Wild West. There were no rules, no regulators, and a company could apparently say almost anything and get away with it no matter how insane it looks by today’s standards. Take, for instance, household cleaner Lysol.
During the Depression Era, Lysol ads touted its abilities as a feminine hygiene product, proclaiming it to be safe and gentle and that women who didn’t use it were at risk of losing their husbands. And as uncomfortable as that already sounds, it gets worse. Birth control was not legal, and the world was much more concerned with issues of propriety back then. So the ads weren’t really for feminine hygiene, they were for birth control. The company was suggesting Lysol could prevent you from getting pregnant and, apparently, it convinced a lot of people. Lysol was the most popular method of contraception of the era.
Just to be clear, Lysol is not a good form of birth control and the formula, though different from today, was not at all healthy to be used internally. Reports indicate that by 1911, doctors had recorded 193 cases of Lysol poisoning and 5 deaths as a result of uterine irrigation with the product. And nearly half of the women who used it still ended up pregnant, anyway.
6. Vaping was Once Promoted as a Healthy Alternative to Smoking
Hey, remember vaping? Seems like it happened so long ago. While vaping is still going strong out in the world, it’s definitely not on the upward trajectory it was when it first appeared. Back then, vaping was openly and frequently called a healthy alternative to smoking.
A number of people who used e-cigarettes to vape THC got extremely sick and by 2019, 42 of them had died. There are dangerous additives in a lot of marijuana sold for e-cigarettes, and they may have things not listed on labels. The AMA recommended a ban on all e-cigarettes not meeting standards as a device to help people stop smoking regular cigarettes. The American Association of Family Physicians point out that there isn’t enough long term data to know if vaping represents the same cancer risks as tobacco smoking, but that didn’t make them healthy. They were linked to heart and lung disease and addiction.
5. Incineration was Promoted as the Clean Alternative to Landfill
Garbage and waste have been huge problems for years. We make a lot of trash and we don’t always dispose of it properly or safely. Recycling efforts over the years and making a difference, but it’s not enough and landfills continue to fill up.
The idea of incinerating trash has been promoted in the past as an alternative to landfills. It’s sometimes called waste-to-energy under the guise that burning trash as fuel can generate power to offset the effort put into it in the first place. But the side effects of burning waste are by no means positive as the people of Doral, Florida can attest, where they live downwind of a trash incinerator that routinely leaves the town smelling like, well, burning trash.
In addition to stench, burning trash releases a host of toxic chemicals like dioxins and heavy metals. Proximity to waste incinerators has been linked to numerous diseases and miscarriages.
4. Sugar Was Marketed as a Health Food
Sugar is one of those ingredients people have a love hate relationship with. People constantly want to cut back on it, but it’s naturally found in a ton of food and, let’s be honest, sweet things taste good. In an effort to improve the image of sugar, in the 1960s the sugar industry went out of its way to convince people sugar was healthy.
Scientists were paid to downplay links between sugar and things like heart disease. Instead, the blame was shifted to fat. Ads from the 60s and 70s made it seem like fat was slowing you down but sugar gave you energy to get through the day. Some ads would push the limits of reason by suggesting that pure sugar was even healthier than something like a grapefruit.
3. Quaaludes were Originally Meant as a Malaria Treatment
Quaaludes are most closely associated with the 1970s and Bill Cosby, both for essentially the same reason. The recreational sedative is all but unknown today thanks to the fact they’re no longer legal because of how easily they were abused and the danger they represented.
Despite their current classification which puts them in the same boat as heroin, and their reputation as a date rape drug, when Quaaludes were first developed the intent was to save lives. The drug was not meant as a sedative or sleeping aid at all; it was actually developed as a treatment for malaria.
The drug, known as methaqualone, was developed in the 1950s and didn’t actually work as an antimalarial at all. However, the sedative effects were considered beneficial, and it was widely prescribed for that reason because it was considered less dangerous until it began to be widely abused.
2. Trans Fats Were Once Considered Healthier Than Normal Fats
When companies are looking to let you know pretty quickly that their product is healthy there are a few short, quick labels you’ll find on packaging. Things like “no cholesterol” or “low fat” and so on. Stuff that can fit in the corner of a box or bag and are often just buzz terms to try to get your attention. For instance, you’ll often see “Zero Cholesterol” on packages of things like chips when potatoes have never had cholesterol in the first place so it’s not like the company went out of their way to make them healthy.
Another buzz term you’ll see often is “zero trans fats.” No one likes trans fats, right? They raise the bad cholesterol and lower the good cholesterol in your body which greatly increases your risk of heart disease. But they became widespread because they were once promoted as being healthier than “normal” fats because saturated fats were widely associated with poor health. Scientists knew they were potentially unhealthy as far back as the 1950s but they were officially recognized as such until 2013.
1. Cigarettes Were Once Used to Treat Asthma
We covered e-cigarettes already so why not go right to the source and hit up cigarettes as well. It’s fairly well known that the health risks of cigarettes were covered up for a long time, but there’s a distinct difference between not saying something causes harm and actively saying something can actually benefit your health. Against all odds and logic, there was a time when cigarettes were promoted as a treatment for asthma.
A product called Page’s Inhalers were marketed as medicated cigarettes for the “temporary relief of paroxysms of asthma.” The directions were pretty straightforward. Presumably, in the midst of an asthma attack, you exhale all the air from your lungs then inhale smoke from the cigarette, filling your lungs then hold for a few seconds before exhaling again. Try it four times a day!
Despite the fact these look like a product of the early 1900s, you could still find doctors prescribing them into the 1990s. The cigarettes contained ingredients that actually could help ameliorate the symptoms of asthma attacks but the problem was it was delivered through a cigarette so for all the relief you might legitimately get, the smoke would still exacerbate the problem, which is why these things don’t exist anymore.